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God is Love. He who remains in Love 

remains in God, and God 

in him. 

— I. Ep. of John, Chap. iv. i(. 



FREDERICK GERHARD. 



THE 



Coming Creed of the World. 



Is ttiErE nut a Faith, more 

Sublime and Blissful 

than Christianity? 



X Ycice Crying in tfjE ^ilflei^ness. 

iV 

/ 

FREDERICK GERHARD. 



Prove all things. 

—Paul. 
Truth shall make you free. 

— JE8US. 

I hare dared ! <j ;-~ 

UCH VON HUTTBN. 




V DEC k> 



PHILADELPHIA: . «* 

404 ARCH STREET. ^*^»._ ' 



W. H. THOMPSON, PuBListetf,- » ' <? *7 *■* 7 \ 



<&>* 

? &X 



TO HIS HIGHLY ESTEEMED FRIEND, 

A. H. LAIDLAW, A. M., M. D., 

THIS BOOK IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
BY 

The Author. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, 

By Frederick Gerhard, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



Publishers in foreign countries, who issue translations of this book, 
will confer a favor upon the author by forwarding to him two copies, 
directed to Hoboken, New Jersey, U. S. of America. 



Royal Print, Philadelphia. 



Contents, 



Preface, 7 

Theses, II 

Introduction, 15 

The Bible, 21 

Christianity, 45 

Dogmas, -- 45 

Sects, 72 

Rites and Ceremonies, 84 

Miracles, 88 

Priests, 95 

The Missionaries, 126 

Fanaticism, - - - 140 

Belief in Evil Spirits and Superstition, - - - - 1 81 

Has Christianity Made Mankind Better ? - - - 205 

Religion, 224 

God and the World, 247 

Jesus, 285 

Prayer, 306 

Belief and Science, -------- 324 

The Opponents of Religion, - - * - - - - 349 

The Spirit of Man and Immortality, 376 

Pertaining to Morality, 417 

Conclusion, 520 



Preface. 



Whoever undertakes to say something publicly on so 
serious and sacred a subject as religion, and is compelled 
to express views and convictions opposed to those which 
generally prevail in these days, ought, in my opinion, to 
enable the reader at once to judge the moral and intellec- 
tual attributes of the author, and to ascertain whether 
these views are really the honest expressions of his con- 
victions, and whether they are dictated by honest conclu- 
sions or not. I can think of no better way to reach this 
end than by giving the reader a concise account of the 
different phases of mental development through which I 
have passed. 

My parents were Christian people, entirely free from all 
pietism, and I was brought up simply according to the 
teachings of the Christian Church. After having been 
confirmed I lived, like millions of others, as a member of 
that communion, without ever reflecting on the nature of 
religion and faith. When I had reached about half-way 
between thirty and forty years of age an event occurred 
which was intended to arouse me from my thoughtlessness, 
to stir me up to reflection, and to lead me into a path 
which I have followed ever since. 

A business friend had introduced to me a youth, sixteen 
years old, of the name of Eunom Philippi. I have never 
met, in the long course of my life, a purer, nobler, more 
modest, young man than he. He was soon thoroughly at 
home in my house, and was treated like one of my chil- 
dren. We had many and long conversations, and on one 



8 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

occasion the subject of religion and church came under 
discussion. When I expressed the views of Christianity, 
in which I had been educated, and which I had followed 
hitherto, he asked me with that charming modesty which 
was peculiarly his own : " But, dear Mr. Gerhard, is there 
not perhaps a faith more sublime and blissful than Chris- 
tianity?" I do not remember what reply I made to this, 
but I know that at that moment a veil was drawn from my 
eyes, and I saw before me, as it were, a light shining 
through the dark night around me. From that moment I 
began to reflect upon the serious problems of life. For 
more than forty years — I am now in my eightieth year — I 
have seriously considered the subject ; I have gone 
through nearly the entire literature relating to it, express- 
ing almost every opinion. From week to week, from day 
to day, the scales have fallen more and more from my 
eyes, and I have arrived at the conclusion that true religion 
is nothing more than the belief in one Suftre??ie Being, and 
the love for our fellow -men. Gradually the dogmatic clouds 
and mists which surrounded the sublime idea of the Eter- 
nal God cleared up and disappeared. It has beamed upon 
me in all purity an eternal light on my life's path, which, 
in bright and dark hours, has never left me for a moment. 
To this day this conviction has preserved in me, with the 
serious thoughts of matured manhood, the cheerful dis- 
position of youth. It has made my life a happy and con- 
tented one, it has enhanced every joy and pleasure, and in 
the hours of grief, which is the heirloom of all mortals, it 
has brought me the fulness of comfort and peace. I have 
deposited the result of my many years' reflections in the 
following pages. My work is not directed against the 
sublime doctrine of Jesus, not against the gospel of love, 



PREFACE. 9 

but against human dogmatism and priestcraft by wnich it 
has been corrupted. 

Much of similar intent as mine has been said and 
written before, but the writers and orators di not think 
it advisable to speak the whole trut and to draw a dis- 
tinct parallel between Christianity and Religion. While 
some rejected the good with the bad, by attempting to 
destroy religion itself, others made use of weapons which 
must be considered as unworthy and sacrilegious in a 
contest about the highest problems of life, — namely, 
satire, scorn, and scoffing. We may, indeed we ought to, 
oppose publicly and without reserve that which we con- 
sider an error ; but it should only be done in a manner 
which cannot hurt the feeling of those who think differ- 
ently. I hope the re. der of the foil wing page will be 
convinced that, whatever have been my feelings, I have 
been guided by that sentiment. 

And now, dear reader, I will repeat once more the 
words of the Apostle Paul which I have written on the 
title page : " Prove all things;" and the words of Jesus: 
" Truth shall make you free." Although I myself know 
that what I have said is living, and will re-echo in the 
hearts of hundreds of thousands, I do not disguise to 
myself the fact that it will arouse many opponents, par- 
ticularly from three different directions. In the first place, 
fom those who believe blindly, who will not see with 
their eyes nor hear with their ears, who think it a sin 
merely to reflect upon religious questions ; then there are 
the Pharisees, who say : "I thank thee that I am not 
like one of those," and who teach what they do not 
believe ; and, lastly, the 'atheists, who would drag the 
Eternal God from his throne in the heart of mankind. 



io THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Before all these adversaries I cast down with courage and 
confidence the words of Ulrich von Hutten : "I have 
dared!" 

Now, dear, reader, 1 stand before you with open visor 
and open heart. Meet me also with an open heart and 
the honest desire of examining seriously and faithfully 
what I have written. 

Frederick Gerhard. 

Hoboken, N. J., Sept. i, 1884. 



Theses. 

There is only one Supreme Being, who rules the 
world, and to whom everything owes its origin. This 
Supreme Being we call God. 



Only to that one Supreme Being we owe adoration 
and divine veneration. Adoration and divine venera- 
tion of one born of woman, or of any object outside 
of the Supreme Being, is idolatry. 



There is only one religion, — namely, that more or 
less distinct feeling of dependence upon a Supreme 
Being, which is common to all men ; and the sense 
of duty and obedience to the will of God, which 
grows from this and makes itself heard within us. 



Religion is not a form. It does not consist in the 
belief or in the dogmas of any one church, or any 
observance of certain rites and priestly actions, but 
only in the love of God, in the suppression of all 
selfishness, and in active love of our fellow-creatures. 



Piety does not consist in frequent attendance at 
church, in thoughtless prayer, in folding of hands and 
casting down of eyes — not in outward ceremonies 
and in contempt of the joys of life ; but in cheerful 

(") 



12 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

looking up to God, in grateful enjoyment of all gift? 
which rejoice, and which God has bestowed upon us. 



Love of our fellow-men, no matter of what race, 
nationality or creed, is, next to our love of God, our 
most sacred duty. Everything, without exception, 
that does not correspond with it, or is opposed to it, 
is deserving of rejection. 



God does not require of us that we should be Chris- 
tians, or Israelites, or Mohammedans, or that we should 
belong to any other sect, but that we should be good 
and faithful men. If we honestly strive after this aim 
and reach it, we have fulfilled the object of our life. 
It is the highest aim we can reach ; all else is futile. 



Two powerful influences regulate men's actions, — 
the submission to the will of the Supreme Being, and 
the predomination of our own will, — i. e., selfishness. 
The first produces love and peace, and the last heart- 
lcssness and disorder. 



There are no miracles, there never have been mira- 
cles, and there never can be miracles. Everything 
that occurs in the universe is produced according to 
eternal, unchangeable laws. The belief in miracles 
is the origin of superstition. 



There is nothing supernatural, though there are 
things that are supersensible, — namely, natural events 



THESES. 13 

which appear to our senses as accomplished facts, but 
the origin and mutual connection of which we cannot 
comprehend nor conceive with our imperfect human 
senses. 

Reason is the highest gift which God has given to 
men, and we are bound to use it. We must not 
believe blindly, but must meditate seriously upon our 
relations to God and upon our duties. Reason leads 
to the knowledge of truth. 



Religion and science are not opposed to each other. 
They are the founders of the welfare of mankind and 
fellow-workers. Both pursue the same task, — to en- 
lighten men, to make them better and happier. 



The Bible, which Christianity calls the word of 
God, is, like every other book, the work of man, 
written by men who, like others, were subject to 
errors, and who, moreover, lived in an age which, in 
culture and knowledge, stands far behind that in 
which we live. The Bible, besides much that is good 
and beautiful, contains many errors, much that is 
incomprehensible, that is opposed to reason, that has 
no relation to religion ; much that is unholy, and for 
which the name, The Word of God, is altogether 
unsuited. 

There is no other revelation than that which God 
has given us in nature, in the whole universe and in 
our own conscience. 



i 4 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The human spirit is immortal. Neither reward nor 
punishment await us after death, but a further devel- 
opment to a higher spiritual life, until our spirit has 
reached perfection and has joined the Great Spirit of 
the World, and has become one with it. 



Toleration is the outgrowth of spiritual pride. 
Whoever boasts of tolerating another of different 
belief, arrogates the right that he ought not to toler- 
ate him, and proudly tries to elevate himself above 
his fellow-men. Instead of being tolerant, we should 
recognize full equality with us of everybody believing 
differently, such as we justly claim for ourselves. 
Not toleration, but recognition of equality of all, is 
the maxim of our time and of humanity. 



Liberty in public and private life cannot exist 
without complete justice. Liberty is not the right to 
do everything we wish to do, but only the right to do 
all which does not interfere with the rights of others* 



Introduction. 

A field of thought which is neglected by a vast ma- 
jority of men is that relating to religion. Yet it is a sub- 
ject which is open to the most simple-minded, which has 
no disturbing influence, which, on the contrary, enlightens 
our innermost soul, casting its bright beams on all our 
thoughts and actions, prevents us from entering the wrong 
path, showing us always the right way ; bringing peace to 
our hearts amidst all the storms and changes of life. The 
causes of this neglect are of different natures. Many con- 
sider that religion interferes with the pleasures of life, and 
turn away from it for that reason. Others think they do 
enough if they attend church and follow the commands 
and ceremonies of the communion to which they belong. 
Others consider themselves advanced thinkers, and 
imagine that religion is only intended for less enlightened 
people than themselves. Others, again, think that partic- 
ular doctrine, which they call their religion, is perfection, 
and consider every one who thinks differently either a her- 
etic or an unbeliever. There are some who live as if in a 
dream in that particular sect in which they have been 
brought up, while others think it wrong, even a sin, to 
scrutinize the doctrines of the Church, and consider them- 
selves in duty bound to believe everything which the 
priest commands them to believe. Finally, there are those 
who have begun to think ; but when doubts arose, they 
thought it the best way to get over the difficulty by abandon- 
ing all thought of religion as an unnecessary incumbrance, 
although they lost- thereby the guiding star of their lives. 

(15) 



16 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Thus it happens that indifference to religion is spreading 
more and more every year, bringing as natural conse- 
quences in its train unhappy marriages, degenerated chil- 
dren, immorality, drunkenness and gambling ; dissipation, 
dishonesty, fraud and corruption ; theft, murder, suicide 
and many other crimes growing and increasing in a fearful 
ratio. 

How many people are there not who, day after day, de- 
vote their whole thought to their business, to the accummula- 
tion of wealth, to the manner of dressing, beautifying and 
amusing themselves ; but they take no time to think of 
what is of the highest importance, — their relation to God, 
the condition of their soul. They are indifferent as re- 
gards this most vital question, which enters into every 
phase of their existence. They go to church from time 
to time, observe its rites and ceremonies, and think that 
thereby they are doing justice to what they call their re- 
ligious duties, while these ceremonies and mere church at- 
tendance are not nearer to true religion than our earth is 
to the solar globe, from which alone it receives light and 
life. 

For many years we have heard from Christian pulpits, 
and have read in Christian publications, about the steady 
decrease of attendance at church. But that is the fault 
of Christianity alone, because, instead of the love of God 
and our fellow-men, it preaches dogmas which are opposed 
to reason and to the spirit of our times. The Christian 
Church does not regard as a leading principal the sublime 
doctrine of Jesus, — " Love ye one another," — but it lays 
more weight on that dogma invented by man, that Jesus, 
or rathe? Christ, as the Christian Church calls him, is the 
son of God, — indeed, is God himself. However great 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

may be our veneration of the sublime man Jesus, it is 
against all human reason to worship him as God, and to 
place him even above the Supreme Being. Let him who 
doubts that this is done go into a Christian church and see, 
when the name of Christ is spoken by the priest, how all 
bow down reverently, while nobody gives a sign of devo- 
tion when the name of God is pronounced. And those 
who object to these rites because they are really religious, 
because they believe in one Supreme Being, in one God 
only, are called unbelievers by the Church. 

And how few, comparatively speaking, of those who go 
to church to-day are really believers ! One goes out of 
regard for his friends or business connections, who would 
be shocked, would look upon him as an unbeliever; 
another, because his church-going employer Would dismiss 
him as an unbeliever ; a third, to listen to the music ; a 
fourth, to find an opportunity of making acqaintances 
with ladies ; a fifth, out of mere habit ; a sixth, because it 
happens to be Sunday ; he would consider it a sin to re^d 
something instructive or to take up a useful work, so he 
goes to pass away the time. 

And how many, or rather, how few, who go to church 
to-day prove by their actions that they carry the fruit of 
religion, love of our neighbor, in their heart? How 
many live in enmity with their nearest relations who 
perhaps attend the same church ? How many of these 
church-goers neglect old friends who have become poor, 
with whom, when they were prosperous, they lived on 
intimate terms ? How many church-goers do not hesitate 
to do wrong to their fellow-creatures and deceive them ? 
What, indeed, becomes of what is exalted as Christian 
charity ? 



18 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The Church has at all times considered unbelief in its 
dogmas as the greatest of crimes. It has marked those who 
dissented from them as heretics ; yet the belief of those so- 
called infidels, their faith in One Supreme Being, is infinitely 
more precious to the soui than all the Christian dogmas. 

The steady, thoughtless following of a prescribed path 
is much more convenient than the strife and struggle for 
an individual conviction. The former is like an old, well- 
frequented, even high-road, while the latter is a stony, 
thorny path which we must clear for ourselves ; but it 
leads, not like the former, into a dark forest in which we 
have to grope for an outlet, but brings us to the sunny 
summit of a lofty mountain, with an extended view of the 
world lying at our feet. 

The human spirit must not allow itself to be closed, it 
must not refuse to examine ; but it must look clearly and 
steadily into the eyes of that which hitherto has been 
opposed to its views. It must not turn away, either with 
pride or with cowardice, from that which so far has been 
strange ; but it should test everything calmly and without 
prejudice. The truth will ever issue victorious out of the 
struggle. Truth does not shun the light ; error and un- 
truth alone fear it. 

No more communities, no more sects, no Judaism, no 
Islam, no Christianity ; only one universal church of all 
humanity, in which all men shall dwell together like 
brethren, no matter of what race or nation ; and they shall 
pray to one Eternal God, the creator and ruler of the 
world, the loving father of all living creatures. That is 
the great doctrine which the sublime lover of mankind, 
Jesus, has taught ; for which he has died as a martyr, a 
martyr of true humanity, a martyr of love and truth. 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

Whe 1 men will have recognized that salvation can only 
be found in this principle and in this faith, there will be 
no longer masters and slaves, no more oppressors and 
oppressed, no more deceivers and deceived, no more 
seducers and seduced ; wars will cease, peace will reign, — 
peace within families, peace among nations ; peace, joy, 
and happiness among all men. What Jesus has taught, 
that alone is true religion, the religion of lcve; and in 
love there is freedom and justice, and all blessings of this 
eaithly life. 

Will this time ever come? As surely as the Eternal 
God lives above us, it will come ; there will be one flock 
and one shepherd, but not in the sense of the Christian 
priests, — who preach that dogmas lead to salvation, while 
these priests themselves set the world an example of strife 
and dissent, of dishonesty and hyprocrisy, — but only in 
the sense of the great Master, who has spoken these words, 
only in the sense of the founder of true humanity, which 
is based upon the belief in God. 

The germs are plainly perceptible, for everywhere and 
in all communities there are very many who keenly feel 
the emptiness and absence Of all reason in the present 
condition of the Church, and are longing for something 
higher. 

Oh men! perceive that spiritual slavery is the most 
degrading of all. Shake off these fetters and do not believe 
blindly in all you are asked to believe. Use your own 
intellect, reflect for yourselves upon the subjects which are 
the most important, the most sacred of life. Pull down 
with a strong hand the veil with which churches and 
sects have hidden the sublime idea of God, until it can no 
longer be recognized, and it will appear in full glory, 



2 o THE CUMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

showering bliss upon all mankind. Only have the courage 
to throw off the old church-belief which has defied reason 
for centuries, has warped your spirits, and which will 
always try to destroy it. Have the courage to be true to 
yourselves, true to God, true to your neighbor. Have 
the courage to will to be free and happy, and you will be 
free and happy. 

The Church tells you you must not doubt ; to doubt is 
sin. But I tell you if you find anything that does not 
agree with your reason, then doubt. But doubt with an 
honest desire to find the Truth, and you will find it. 
Doubt is the key to Truth. You have this key in your 
hand and you must use it to open the gates that lead to 
Truth. As a fellow-mortal, who has, through many years 
of his life, sought the Truth as a supporter, comforter and 
guide, I tell you there is a purer shrine than the Christianity 
or Churchianity of to-day. Believe in God, the Supreme 
Being, and follow the teachings of Jesus, and, like him, 
love mankind. Bless all, forgive all, help all. Live with- 
out folly, and die without fear; for in life and in death, 
beneath you clings the Everlasting Arm. 



The Bible. 

The book which has been the foundation of the edifice 
of Christianity is the Bible. The Old Testament con- 
tains the prophecies, which, after the birth of Christ, have 
been brought in connection with him ; the New Testa- 
ment contains the history of the life and doctrines ot 
Jesus. Before answering the question which forms the 
title of this book it is necessary to examine the history of 
the origin of the Bible and its contents. 

For centuries past such an examination has occupied the 
attention of a great number of learned and conscientious 
men, among whom there were many strictly orthodox be- 
lievers. The following has been the result of their in- 
quiries : 

The First Book of Moses has no historical value of any 
kind; it is a legend based upon verbal tradition. The Second 
Book of Moses is equally wanting in historical foundation, 
and indeed the same maybe said of all the writings attrib- 
uted to him. They contain so many contradictions, so many 
impossibilities, so much that is imperfect, that, on this ac- 
count, they have lost all claim to credit. The opinion 
that Moses was the author of the five books which are 
known under his name is at present entertained by only a 
few. They are considered as a compilation which has 
gradually come into existence, and which must be the 
work of different persons. We see, for instance, that God 
is called in some of the books "Jehovah," whilst in 
others the name of " Elohim " is given to Him. The 

(21) 



22 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Fifth Book was probably written under the govern- 
ment of Hilkiah. (See Second Kings, chap, xxii.) 

Either Joshua, Phinehas or Eleazar wrote the book of 
Joshua. 

Samuel wrote the book of Judges, and the book of 
Ruth. He, with Nathan and Gad, is also the author of 
the two books of Samuel. 

Jeremiah is the presumed author of the two books of 
Kings. Ezra wrote the book of Chronicles, and also the 
book of Ezra. 

Nehemiah is the author of the book which has appeared 
under his name. 

The author of the book of Esther is unknown. 

Elihu is the probable author of the book of Job. Some 
scholars maintain that Moses was the author of the first 
and last chapter of this book, whilst otheis attribute the 
entire work to Job himself. 

The majority of the Psalms were written by David, 
whilst Asaph is the author of some of them. 

Solomon wrote the Proverbs, the Ecclesiastes, and the 
Song of Solomon. 

Isaiah and Jeremiah wrote the two books known under 
their names, whilst the latter is also the author of the 
Lamentations. 

Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, 
Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zecha- 
riah and Malachi are the authors of those books which, 
under their names, have been published in the Bible. 

The Gospel of Matthew seems to have been written be- 
tween the years 35 to 60, after the birth of Jesus. It was 
intended to prove to the Israelites that Jesus was the 
promised Messiah. Matthew calls Jesus a man. 



THE BIBLE. 23 

The Gospel of Mark was written probably between 
fifty-five and seventy years after the birth of Jesus. In 
this book it does not appear that the author had ever seen 
Jesus. The orthodox Bible student, Barnes, says that 
Mark was not an apostle or follower of Jesus. 

Luke wrote his Gospel between the years 50 and 60. 
He does not call himself an eye-witness, and, to judge 
from the introduction to the first chapter of his 
Gospel, he has only reported what he then believed to be 
true. 

John wrote his Gospel probably towards the end oi the 
first century. He begins with the doctrine of the god- 
head of Christ, and proceeds from thence to his man- 
hood. 

The Acts of the Apostles were written by Luke. 

Paul is the author of the Epistle to the Romans, the 
I. and II. Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the 
Philippians, the Colossians, the I. and II. Thessalonians, 
the I. and II. Timothy, Titus, Philemon and Hebrews. 

James is the author of the Epistle ascribed to him. 

Peter and John are the respective authors of the epistles 
known under their names. 

Jude, who is said to have been a relative of Jesus, is the 
presumed author of the epistle ascribed to him. 

The Book of Revelation was written by John. 

Whether all these suppositions are justified by fact is 
difficult to discover, but, as has been stated before, they 
are the result of the inquiries of earnest and conscientious 
students. To get absolute certainty about it is a task 
which it would be difficult to accomplish. Many students 
maintain that, as Jesus himself has left nothing in writing 
behind, that all that has been written about him is based 



24 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

upon verbal tradition and was composed in the first cen- 
turies of the Christian era. 

Before the meeting, of the Council of Nice, in the 
year 325 of our era, there existed a great number of Gos- 
pels, of the existence of which tradition has come down 
to our days. There are the following : The Gospels of 
Andrew, of Apelles, of the Twelve Apostles, of Barna- 
bas, of Bartholomew, of Basilides, of Cerinthus, of the 
Ebionites, of the Egyptians, of the Encratites, of the 
Childhood of Jesus, of Eternity, of Eve, of the Gnostics, 
of the Hebrews, of Hesychius, of Jacob, of the Death of 
Mary, of Judas, of Thaddeus, of Lucius, of Lucian, three 
different ones of the Manichees, of Marcion, three of the 
Birth of Mary, of the Nazarenes, Matthias, of Nicodemus, 
of Paul, of Perfection, of Philip, of the Apostle Peter, 
of the Simonians, of the Syrians, of Tatius, of Thomas, 
«^f Valentine, of the Living, of the Family of Jesse, of the 
History of Jesus (probably written by one of his nearest 
relatives), of the History of Mary, two collections of 
Discourses by Mary, the History of the Birth of Jesus, 
the History of the Death of Jesus, the Acts of the 
Apostles by Abedias, the History of Joseph, etc. 

The Apocryphal writings (the Church gives this name 
to those writings which are not canonical, that is to say, 
not accepted by the councils) circulated through the first 
three centuries of our era, and were considered as reliable 
until the Council of Nice. At this council a vote was 
taken as regards the acceptance or rejection of the differ- 
ent writings. Those known as the Apocrypha were re- 
jected, and those contained in our Bible were considered 
as the foundation of Christianity. 



THE BIBLE. 25 

But the decisions of the Council of Nice were not 
everywhere accepted. On the contrary, great objections 
were raised against them by men of the highest honor in 
the Christian Church. The famous father of the Church, 
Augustine, towards the end of the fourth century wrote a 
letter to Saint Faustus on this subject, in which he ex- 
presses himself as follows : " The so-called Gospels 
were written long after the days of the Apostles by un- 
known men, who feared that the world would give no 
credit to their narratives because they had not been eye- 
witnesses of the events which they related. These writ- 
ings, which have been known under the name of the 
Apostles, contain so much that is unreasonable and con- 
tradictory that there is neither harmony nor coherence in 
them." 

Another remarkable expression of Saint Augustine may 
be quoted here : " The more absurd and contradictory to 
reason the Bible is, the more I believe it." 

It sounds like bitter irony upon the intellect of those 
generations when we consider that in the midst of Chris- 
tendom, the Bible was denounced as a dangerous book 
(Concilium Tolosanum, 1229), and only the Psalms were 
considered as innocuous. The clergy was not allowed to 
read the Bible in translations, and there were very few in 
those days who were masters of Hebrew and Chaldean. 

Even to-day there exists the greatest possible difference 
of opinion in regard to the value of the books of the 
Apocrypha. They are not recognized by the Catholic 
Church, nor by many authorities in the Protestant Church. 
The small portion which we find in Luther's translation 
of the Bible has been excluded from the Vulgata, — 
that version of the Bible which was recognized by the 



26 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Council of Trent as the only genuine authority. Nor do 
we find these books in the Bibles which are printed in 
England and in the United States, p rticularly not in 
those published by the Bible Societies in these countries. 
The Scotch Puritans and the Low Church party of the 
Anglican Church reject the Apocrypha as the " falsifica- 
tion of God's Word." It may be remarked here that 
there is also a Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses, which 
are full of cabalistic and magic lore, and which cannot be 
found in any Bible. 

The writings of the Old Testament, which have generally 
been recognized as Canonical, were written in the Hebrew 
language, with the exception of a few pieces of Ezra and 
Daniel, which were written in Chaldean. 

Jesus spoke to his disciples and to the multitudes in 
Hebrew, and his sayings were afterwards translated into 
Greek, from memory, by some of his hearers, or were 
written down after tradition. Owing to the great dif- 
ference between these two languages, and the then pre- 
vailing ignorance of philology, misunderstandings and 
errors could hardly have been avoided. We must also 
take into consideration that in those days, before the in- 
vention of printing, everything had to be copied, which 
also opened the way to errors. The numerous translations, 
very few of which have been made from the original text, 
but were made after previous translations, show such 
variety that a Catholic is not allowed to read a Protestant 
Bible, and a Protestant would refuse to use a Catholic one, 
and yet it is said that all Bibles express the word of God ! 

It is certain that most of these translations were made 
during the Middle Ages by priests and monks, and even 
among these the knowledge of languages was very deficient. 



THE BIBLE. 27 

For instance, in 1530, a monk said from the pulpit: 
" They have lately discovered a new language which they 
call Greek. We should take care to shun this language, 
which produces all kinds of heresy. We see in the hands 
of a great many people a book in this language, which 
they call the New Testament, which is full of snares and 
blasphemy. As regards the Hebrew language, everybody 
who learns it will at once become a Jew." Such is the 
report of the historian Sismondi in his History of the 
French, vol. xvii., p. 364. 

The Bible has been revised at different periods, and on 
each occasion numerous errors have been discovered. Dr. 
James enumerates two thousand different readings in two 
different versions ; and Lucas van Bruegge, who revised 
the printing of the Vulgatain Louvain, in 1573, discovered 
in the Clementine Vulgata not less than four thousand 
passages which had to be corrected. Within the last few 
years a Commission of Theologians, in England and in 
the United States, has been engaged in a revision of the 
New Testament. This new revision has again been the 
cause of numerous differences. It contains more than 
two thousand passages which have been disputed. Since 
then the Baptist Church has appointed Dr. Conant, who 
took part in the revision of the New Testament, to under- 
take a revision of the Old Testament. 

On account of all the differences among the various 
sects as regards the interpretation of the Bible, and in 
spite of all the endeavors of Christian theologians, no 
conformity of opinion has been reached. 

Professor Hasselbach, of the University of Vienna, lec- 
tured for twenty-two years on the first chapter of Isaiah, 
and had not exhausted his subject when death overtook 



28 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

him. Chancellor Peuziger, of the University of Tuebingen, 
delivered in four years three hundred and twelve lectures 
on the prophet Daniel; then he lectured for twenty-five 
years on the Prophet Isaiah ; during the following seven 
years he delivered four hundred and fifty-nine lectures on 
Jeremiah, and had only one-half exhausted the subject 
when death overcame him in his eightieth year. 

Is the Word of God so obscure and difficult that it re- 
quires so much study and research and so much science to 
make it intelligible? What is the common man, without 
education, to do, if so much study is required, and so 
much learning is spent in making the Bible intelligible ? 

We will now see in what relation to the Bible stand the 
different sects, not forgetting that the Bible is supposed to 
be the common foundation of Christianity. The Mani- 
chees rejected the whole of the New Testament and de- 
clared it false. The Valentinians maintained the Bible 
was full of errors and contradictions. The Marcionites 
declared the Gospels to be full of falsehood. The 
Sevenians and Encratites accepted neither the Epistle of 
Paul nor the Acts of the Apostles. The Nazarines rejected 
all of Paul's Epistles, and considered him an imposter. 
The Corinthians rejected the Acts of the Apostles. Luther 
refused to acknowledge the book of Esther as canonical, 
and to recognize the Apostles as the authors of the 
Epistles to the Hebrews, as well as the Epistles of James 
and Jude, and the Revelations. Zwingli rejected the 
Revelations as uncanonical ; GEcolampadius declared that 
the Revelations, as well as the Epistles of James and Jude, 
the Second Epistle of Peter and the Second and Third of 
John, could not be placed by the side of the other por- 
tions of the Bible. It is the same with the different sects 



THE BIBLE. 



29 



to-day as it was centuries ago. The Methodists discover 
in the Bible the basis of the system of their founder, John 
Wesley. To the Presbyterians it teaches eternal damna- 
tion, to the Universalists the eternal happiness of all man- 
kind. The Quakers find in it the Spirit which leads to 
truth; the Swedenborgians only accept certain books, 
such as the four Gospels and the Revelations. In this 
manner every sect forms its own views of the Bible, which, 
in many instances, are contradictory to those of other 
sects ; and yet every denomination relies upon the Bible for 
its authority. During the time of the persecution of the 
Quakers in Massachusetts in the second half of the seven- 
teenth century, the Bible was relied upon as an authority 
for the Puritans, for the Quakers, for the High Church- 
men, and the Catholics. Is it possible that God's Word, 
which is supposed to be contained in the Bible, is capable 
of so many interpretations, and even rejection? 

After this brief review of the history of the origin of 
the Bible, let us pass to an examination of its contents. 

It would be a great piece of narrow-mindedness and in- 
justice to reject the Bible as a whole. On the contrary, it 
contains much that is true, many wise precepts of morality, 
and some sublime poetry. In the Psalms and in the Book 
of Job we find many expressions of the power and good- 
ness of God. But we find in the Bible much that has no 
relation whatever to religion, much that is actually op- 
posed to human feeling, as, for instance, the terrible curses 
contained in Psalm cix. The Bible contains many errors, 
much that is obscure and incomprehensible, much that is 
confusing and diffuse, much that can only be understood 
by the scholar who is learned in ancient languages. The 
greater part of the Old Testament is occupied by Mosaic 



30 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

history and lawgiving ; it contains many contradictions, 
much that is illogical and impossible, much that stands in 
direct opposition to science, much that is obscure, myste- 
rious and unsatisfactory, and even much that is opposed 
to morality and decency. The Bible may be compared to 
a mine, where rich la; ers of gold ore are imbedded in 
worthless minerals, — wealth hidden under rubbish; a mix- 
ture of good and evil, of wisdom and folly, containing 
the opinions of wise men and the tattle of old women, 
eternal truths and Mosaic prejudices. The Bible furnishes 
another proof for the maxim that that which is old is not 
always good. 

The majority of the prophecies in the Old Testament 
are very obscure, whilst others, which are more definite, 
have been proved to be false ; for instance, those relating to 
the duration of the Jewish Kingdom; to the coming of the 
Messiah, who will sit on the throne of David and over- 
come the Babylonians ; to the destruction of the world, 
and many others. 

In the relation of actual events we meet with much 
that is incredible, unreasonable and impossible. We find 
in the First Chapter of the First Book of Moses that God 
created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh, 
like a tired laborer. Who in these days will consider 
this as anything else but a fable ? Whoever feels still in- 
clined to believe it should consider that Adam and Eve, 
who, according to the Bible, were the first created human 
beings, did not exist during the first days ; how could 
there be an intelligent being to report on the previous 
events of creation? Geognosy has taught us that the 
world has existed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, 
of years. 



THE BIBLE. 31 

Now as to the history of Adam and Eve, who could 
have written it ? Certainly not those two. And what 
does this history tell us? God tempted them with the 
tree of knowledge, by which, undoubtedly, is meant the 
abstinence from sexual intercourse. And because they 
followed the natural instinct, which God himself had 
planted in them, he imposed upon Eve and all coming 
generations the painful bearing of children. Who that 
believes in God's fatherly love and justice can think him 
capable of such cruelty and appalling injustice? And if 
Eve- and the entire female sex are punished in such a man- 
ner, how does it happen that many animals, who had 
nothing to do with the fall, suffer the same pain in bring- 
ing forth their young ? 

We read in Joshua, chap. x. 12, 13, that the sun stood 
still at his command. Whoever would believe in these 
days that any man has the power to dictate the course of 
the stars, or to arrest them, would be ridiculed ; we should 
send him to a mad-house. We know that the universe is 
governed by unchangeable and eternal laws. The four- 
teenth verse of the same chapter says: " And there was 
no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord heark- 
ened unto the voice of a man." This is, if possible, even 
stranger than the standing still of the sun. 

According to the Book of Jonah, ii. 1 and 2, Jonah re- 
mained for three days in the belly of a whale; and he 
prayed to God, and at God's command the whale threw 
him out upon the land. It is a well-known fact that the 
whale with its enormous size has a very narrow gullet, 
through which a body of the size of a man could not pos- 
sibly pass. It is still more incredible how a man could 
live there for three days and be capable of thinking and 



32 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

praying. No man with common sense could be brought to ' 
believe this. 

In the Fourth Book of Moses, xxii. 28 to 30, we find a 
conversation between Balaam and a she-ass. 

In Second Kings, ii. 11, it is said, that the prophet 
Elias ascended unto heaven on a fiery chariot drawn by 
fiery horses. 

In the Second Book of Moses, iv. 3, we read that Moses 
had thrown his staff on the ground, which was changed 
into a serpent, and before which he fled. 

In Judges, xv. 16-19, Samson slew a thousand men 
with the jaw-bone of an ass, whereupon God opened a back 
tooth of the jaw-bone, from which water flowed to quench 
Samson's thirst. 

In I. Kings, xvii. 6, ravens came morning and evening, 
and brought meat and bread to Elijah to satisfy his hunger. 

In II. Kings, vi. 6, we are told that an iron axe was 
swimming on the water. 

According to Hebrews, xi. 29, and Psalm cvi. 9, Moses 
led his host through the Red Sea. 

Innumerable impossibilities of this kind are related in 
the Bible. Could there possibly be, in these days, a man 
of common sense who would take such fables for truth ? 
And is this the word of God ? 

We will now examine some of the contradictions con- 
tained in the Bible : 

God is Love. God is Unmerciful. 

I. Eps. John iv. 16. God is Nahum i. 2. God is jealous, 
love ; and he that dwelleth in Jove and the Lord revengeth ; and is 
dwelleth in God, and God in him. furious; the Lord will take venge- 
ance on Ms adversaries. 



THE BIBLE. 



33 



God is Kind and Merciful. 

James v. n. The Lord is 
very pitiful, and of tender mercy. 



God is Forbearing. 

Psalm cxlv. 8. The Lord is gra- 
cious, and full of compassion ; 
slow to anger, and of great 
mercv 



God is all Powerful. 

Matthew xix. 26. With God 
all things are possible. - 



God is Cruel and Unmerciful. 

Jeremiah xiii. 14. And I will 
dash them one against another, 
even the fathers and the sons 
together, saith the Lord: I will 
not pity, nor spare, nor have 
mercy, but destroy them. 

God is not Forbearing. 

I. Samuel vi. 19. He smote of 
the people fifty thousand and 
three score and ten men : and 
the people lamented, because the 
Lord had smitten many of the 
people with a great slaughter. 

God is not all- Powerful. 

Judges i. 19. And the Lord 
was with Judah ; and he drove out 
the inhabitants of the mountain, 
but could not drive out the in- 
habitants of ' the valley, because 
they had chariots of iron. 



God is Invisible. 

I. John iv. 12. No man hath 
seen God at any time. 



God sees and knows all things. 

Proverbs xv. 3. The eyes 
of the Lord are in every place. 



God is not Invisible. 

Exodus xxxiii. II. And the 
Lord spoke unto Moses face to 
face, as a man speaketh unto his 
friend. 

God does not see and know all 
things. 

Genesis iii. 8. And Adam 
and his wife hid themselves from 
the presence of the Lord God, 
amongst the trees of the garden. 



34 



THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 



God is Unchangeable. 

Mai. iii. 6. For I am the Lord, 
I change not. 



God Approves of Burnt 
Offerings. 

Exod. xxix. 1 8. And thou 
shalt burn the whole ram upon the 
altar: it is a sweet savor, an of- 
fering made by fire unto the Lord. 

Robbery Forbidden. 

Lev. xix. 13. Thou shalt not 
defraud thy neighbor, neither rob 
him. 

Exod. xx. 15. Thou shalt not 
steal. 



God cannot Lie. 

Num. xxiii. 19. God is not a 
man, that he should lie. 

Hebr. vi. 18. It was impossi- 
ble for God to lie. 



God is Changeable. 

Genesis vi. 6, 7. And it re- 
pented the Lord that he had made 
man on the earth,and it grieved him 
at his heart. And the Lord said, 
I will destroy man whom I have 
created from the face of the earth; 
both man, and beast, and the 
creeping thing, even the fowls of 
the air ; for it repenteth me that I 
have made them. 

God Disapproves of Burnt Of- 
ferings. 

Jerem. vi. 20. Your burnt 
offerings are not acceptable, nor 
your sacrifices sweet unto me. 



Robbery Commanded. 

Exod. iii. 21, 22. When ye 
go, ye shall not go empty: but 
every woman shall borrow of her 
neighbor, and of her that 
sojourneth in her house, jewels of 
silver, and jewels of gold, and 
raiment: and ye shall put them 
upon your sons, and upon your 
daughters ; and ye shall spoil the 
Egyptians. 

God sends Lying Spirits to Deceive. 

I. Kings xxii. 23. Now there- 
fore, behold, the Lord hath put a 
lying spirit in the mouth of all 
these thy prophets, and the Lord 
hath spoken evil concerning thee. 



THE BIBLE. 



35 



God is Peaceful. God is Warlike. 

I. Cor. xiv. 33. God is not the Exod. xv. 3. The Lord is a 
author of confusion, but of peace, man of war. 

There is to be a Resurrection of There is to be no Resurrection of 



the Dead. 
I. Cor. xv. 52. The trumpet 
shall sound, and the dead shall be 
raised. 



the Dead. 
Isaiah xxvi. 14. They are 
dead, thty shall not live ; they 
are deceased, they shall not rise. 



Man is Justified by Faith Alone. Man is not Justified by Faith 

Alone. 
Romans hi. 28. Therefore we James ii. 24. Ye see then 
conclude that a man is justified by how that by works a man is 
faith without the deeds of the law. justified, and not by faith only. 



Children are Punished for the Sins 
of their Parents. 

Exod. xx. 5. I the Lord thy 
God am a jealous God, visiting 
the iniquities of the fathers upon 
the children. 

The Oath Commanded. 

Genesis xxi. 23. Now there- 
fore swear unto me here by God, 
that thou wilt not deal falsely with 
me. 



The Sabbath Instituted. 
Exod. xx. 8. Remember the 
Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 



Children are not Punished for 
the Sins of their Parents. 
Ezek. xviii. 20. The son 
shall not bear the iniquity of 
the father. 

Thi Oath Forbidden. 
Matthew v. 34, 35, 37. But 
I say unto you, swear not at all; 
neither by heaven ; for it is 
God's throne : nor by the earth ; 
for it is his footstool. But let 
your communication be yea, yea, 
nay, nay; whatsoever is more 
than these cometh from evil. 
The Sabbath Repudiated. 
Col. ii. 16. Let no man there- 
fore judge you in meat, or in drink, 
or in respect of a holy day, or of 
the new moon, or of the Sabbath 
days. 



36 



THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 



Slavery Ordained. 

Levit. xxv. 45, 46. Of the chil- 
dren of the strangers that do so- 
journ among you, of them shall ye 
buy, and of their families that are 
with you : and they shall be your 
possession. And ye shall take 
them as an inheritance for your 
children after you, to inherit them 
for a possession; they shall be your 
bondsmen forever. 

Murder Ordained. 

Exod.xxxii. 27. Thus saith the 
Lord God of Israel. Put every 
man his sword by his side, and go 
in and out from gate to gate 
throughout the camp, and slay 
every man his brother, and every 
man his companion, and every man 
his neighbor. 

The Christian Yoke is Easy. 

Matt. xi. 30. My yoke is easy 
and my burden is light. 



Wisdom a Source of Enjoyment. 

Prov. iii. 13, 17. Happy is the 
man that findeth wisdom. Her 
ways are ways of pleasantness, 
and all her paths are peace. 

Temptation Desirable. 

James i. 2. Count it all joy 
when ye fall into divers tempta- 



Slavery Forbidden. 

Exod. xxi. 16. He that steal- 
eth a man, and selleth him, or if 
he be found in his hand, he shall 
surely be put to death. 

Exod. xxii. 21 Thou shalt 
neither vex a stranger nor op- 
press him. 



Murder Forbidden. 



Exod. xx. 13. 
kill. 



Thou shalt not 



The Christian Yoke is not Easy. 

II. Tim. iii. 12. Yea, and all 
that will live godly in Christ 
Jesus shall suffer persecution. 

Wisdom a Source of Grief. 

Eccl. i. 18. In much wisdom is 
much grief: and he that increaseth 
knowledge increaseth sorrow. 

Temptation Not Desirable. 

Matt. vi. 13. Lead us not into 
temptation. 






THE BIBLE. 



37 



Prosperity a Blessing. 
Ps. cxii. I, 3. Blessed is the 
manthatfeareth the Lord. Wealth 
and riches shall be in his house. 



Jesus Crucified at J o'clock. 

Mark xv. 25. And it was the 
third hour, and they crucified 
him. 



Judas Relumed the Blood Mite. 



Prosperity a Curse. 
Matt. xix. 24. It is easier for a 
camel to go through the eye of a 
needle, than for a rich man to en- 
ter into the kingdom of God. 

Jesus Crucified at 6 o'clock. 

St. John xix. 14, 16. And it was 
the preparation of the passover, and 
about the sixth hour. Then de- 
livered he him therefore unto them 
to be crucified. 

Judas Did Not Return the Blood 
Mite. 
Acts i. 18. Now this man 
(Judas) purchased a field with 
the reward of iniquity. 



Matt, xxvii. 3. Then Judas, 
which had betrayed him, when he 
saw that he was condemned, re- 
pented himself, and brought again 
the thirty pieces of silver to the 
chief priests and elders. 

Can a book containing so many and such gross contra- 
dictions be called the Word of God ? 

What strange ideas many of the writers of the Bible 
formed of God will best be illustrated by some passages 
in which they attribute to Him every human quality and 
even human occupation. 

In the First Book of Moses ii. 8, he is madeagardener : 
" And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden." 

In the same book, iii. 21, he is made a tailor : " Unto 
Adam, also, and his wife, did the Lord God make coats 
of skins and clothed them." 

In the Second Book of Moses i. 21, he is made a builder : 
"And it came to pass because the mid wives feared God 
that he made them houses." 



3 8 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

In Isaiah, xxxiv. 6, he is made a butcher : " The sword 
of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, 
and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the 
kidneys of rams : for the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah." 

In the Second Book of Moses, xxxii. 15, 16, God is 
made a stone-cutter : " And Moses turned and went down 
from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were 
in his hand : the tables were written on both their sides ; 
on the one side and on the other were they written. And 
the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the 
writing of God, graven upon the tables." 

In the Fifth Book of Moses, xxxiv. 5, 6, he is made an 
undertaker: "So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died 
there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the 
Lord, and he buried him in a valley in the land of 
Moab." 

The Eternal God is represented to us as a barber and 
hairdresser in Isaiah vii. 20. " In the same day shall the 
Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them be- 
yond the river, by the King of Assyria, the head and the 
hair of the feet." 

But enough of this. 

Far more revolting than all this that is impossible and 
contradictory in the Bible are those indecent passages 
which we can only point out with disgust, as for instance, 
I. Moses xvi. 1 to 4; I. Moses xii. 1 to 16 ; I. Moses xix. 8; 
I. Mosesxxx. 1 to 23 ; I. Moses xxxviii. 2, 3, 8, 9 ; II. Moses 
xxii. 16 and 19; II. Moses xxxiv. 15, 16; III. Moses xv. 
16 to 27 ; III. Moses xviii. 6 to 23 ; III. Moses xx. 11 to 21; 
IV. Moses v. 12 to 22 ; IV. Moses xxxi. 17 to 18 ; V. Moses 
xxi. 10 to 14; V. Moses xxii. 13 to 17 ; Judges xxi. 12 ; I. 
Samuel xxv. 22 and 34; II. Samuel xii. 11, 12 ; II. Samuel 



THE BIBLE. 39 

xvi. 22; I Kings xiv. 24; II. Kings xviii. 27 ; II. Kings 
xxiii. 7 ; Ezekiel xxiii. 2 to 21, and many others. 

As I have reprinted literally the different passages to 
which I referred before, I would also like to quote those 
above, but I do not wish to defile my book with such in- 
decency. Those who wish to convince themselves may 
look up these passages; but I earnestly advise women who 
will read this book not to look them up. Even every man 
of moral character, while reading them, would be filled 
with disgust and horror. Could parents who care for the 
welfare of their children give them any other book which, 
by the side of so much that is good, contains so much that 
is corrupt and immoral? Yet the Bible is given to young 
people as the foundation of religious instruction. That 
the attention of children, in some way or other, will be 
called to these passages cannot be avoided. Of course 
they will read them, and the seed of immorality will thus 
be planted in their innocent hearts. 

The Bible has been called the Word of God, and it has 
been asserted that its contents are based upon divine 
revelation. By revelation is meant an extraordinary gift 
of God to men, by which they have gained knowledge of 
things which hitherto had been hidden from them, and 
which, by their own mental exertion, they could not have 
fathomed. Leaving out of the question that God, in His 
almightiness, had no need of such extraordinary- means 
and mysterious announcements to particular persons to 
make his will prevail, we cannot suppose that his justice 
would confer such revelations to a portion of mankind 
only. Only one-third of the people living on this earth 
belong to the Christian religion. If the Bible alone con- 
tains the true revelation and the true source of knowledge, 



40 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

by far the larger portion of mankind will be excluded from 
it. Is such a thing possible ? 

All enthusiasts and sectarians of the Christian Church have 
referred to the Bible to find arguments for their secession 
from other denominations. We find to this day in the system 
of Mormonism an example of such justification for dissent. 

A book which is so full of contradictions, and which 
bears on its face the stamp of human error and weakness, 
cannot be a divine revelation. In consequence of the be- 
lief that the Bible contains irrefutable truth and divine 
revelation, and is a commandment which cannot be dis- 
obeyed, it has impeded the progress of humanity and 
scientific advance ; it has kept mankind in servitude and 
encouraged despotism ; has been the cause of cruel wars, 
and of the horrors of the Inquisition. 

Our times are different and more enlightened than the 
times in which the books of the Bible were written. 
Thought and inquiry have asserted their rights and enlight- 
ened the world. Reason, observation and experience 
have become our guiding stars. 

What could we think to-day of a teacher of geography 
who would instruct his pupils after the system of Ptolemy, 
or of a physician who would treat his patients after the 
precepts of Hippocrates ? Mankind thinks, and as it has 
progressed in material matters, it has also advanced in 
ideal subjects, in the knowledge of religious life. The 
world is different from what it was two thousand years ago; 
it has not become irreligious or godless; it is only striving 
to free itself from dogmatism, by which reason has been 
kept in bondage. 

The theory of the divine inspiration of the Bible is no 
longer tolerated. It has been proved by unprejudiced and 



THE BIBLE. 41 

conscientious students that many of the events related in 
the Bible have their origin in older myths and legends. The 
English archaeologist, George Smith, who died only a few 
years ago, has achieved great results in this respect. He 
has succeeded in putting together the old tablets with 
cuneiform inscriptions which have been found buried in 
rubbish in Assyrian palaces, and has deciphered them. 
Among these he found an account of a great inundation, 
which, no doubt, was the origin of the biblical narrative 
of the flood. He also found a history of the creation of 
the world, which agreed with that given in the Bible, by 
which sufficient proof is furnished that the latter has been 
derived from the former. 

A legend similar to that of the biblical deluge we find 
in Grecian mythology, according to which Jupiter, in 
order to destroy the ungodly race of men, caused a great 
flood to cover the earth, from which only Deukalion and 
his wife Pyrrha were saved to re-people the world. 

The Bible, with its legends, prophecies, contradictions, 
and alleged miracles, can only be rightly understood if 
we take into consideration the history and mode of thought 
of those times. For everybody else it is a doubly-sealed 
book, the true meaning of which cannot be understood 
by a world in which new knowledge and new ideas have 
been formed upon a basis of science different from that 
which existed in those days. Many and great errors have 
been propagated by the Bible among Christian nations ; 
many fanatical actions and persecutions have been caused 
by the mysterious and obscure passages which it contains; 
thousands of people have been deprived of their reason 
and ended their miserable lives in m&d -houses in trying to 
unravel the mysterious passages in which the Bible abounds. 



42 THE CUMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

There are many people who are constantly reading the 
Bible and who consider this a service for the glory of 
God. Many have read the Bible from beginning to end, 
some more than once, yet they have noc understood, nor 
can they ever understand, what they have read. They 
read without reflection or meditation upon that which is 
before them. From their earliest youth they have been 
impressed with the divine character of the book, and 
their faculty of thought has been smothered by these con- 
tradictory dogmas ; only by these means the belief in the 
Bible could be kept alive in them. Professor Huxley 
says: "Whilst the doctrines of ancient heathenism, the 
stories of Osiris and Zeus, are considered as fables, and 
anybody who would take them for anything else, or look 
upon them as facts, would be ridiculed, yet there are in- 
numerable people who still believe in the fantasies of the 
uneducated people who lived in Palestine nineteen cen- 
turies ago, and which have been written in the Bible by 
unknown and ignorant writers. People who consider 
themselves educated look upon these fables — for instance, 
the history of the creation of the world — as facts, and 
accept them as a standard of the truth of scientific inquiry/' 

Those who believe in the inspiration and revelation 
of the biblical writings, and consider the Bible as a 
1 ' sacred ' ' book, shoul d remember that there are other, non - 
Christian people, who base their creed upon books which 
they claim to have been revealed by gods, or by God. 
These are the Vedas of the Brahmas in India, which is 
written in the Sanscrit language ; the Tripitaka of the 
Buddhists, also in India, written in the Pasi language; 
the Zendavesta of Zoroaster, in Persia, written in the Zend 
language; the Koran of the Mohammedans of Arabia, 



THE BIBLE. 43 

written in the Arabic language; the Shu-King books by 
Con-fu-tse in China, written in the Chinese language; 
and the Tao-te-King books, by Taotse, also written in the 
Chinese language. 

Including the Jewish-Christian Bible, we have seven 
distinct works, said to have been inspired. The sacred 
hieroglyphic writings of the ancient Egyptians and the 
cuneiform inscriptions of the Chaldeans have almost com- 
pletely perished. The sibylline books, containing the 
creed of the Romans, have been lost. The Edda of the 
Germans was collected only after the ancient faith of the 
people had perished. The sacred book of the Sikhs in 
India, is, as the sect numbers only a few followers, of 
little importance, and the Book of Mormon is a fraud of 
our century. 

However different the above-named seven collections of 
holy writings may be, their followers believe, as firmly as 
the Christians believe of the Bible, that they are based 
upon divine revelation, and that they alone contain every- 
thing that leads to eternal bliss. Which of these reve- 
lations is the true, the really divine one ? None. All 
without exception are the work of men, full of human 
weakness and human errors. 

But there is a book of revelation written in golden, im- 
perishable letters : The Universe. Not only man, with 
his wonderful organization and his superior intellect, 
preaches this revelation, but every flower, every blade of 
grass, every tree ; the most powerful animal as well as the 
smallest, which is scarcely visible to the naked eye ; the 
starry firmament with its thousands of heavenly bodies, 
proclaim the greatness, the wisdom and the love of the 
Eternal God. 



44 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Aid you, dear reader, carry within yourself another 
book of revelation which is always open before you, — your 
conscience, through which God speaks directly to you at 
every moment. Follow its voice. This revelation does 
not permit any contradiction or mystification which 
requires the explanation of others. It will never lead you 
astray, and will at every moment of your life point out 
the right way. We need no other revelation. 



Christianity. 

Christianity consists of three principal parts, — the 
dogma which has established the doctrine of the Trinity, 
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy 
Ghost, in which the Son, Jesus, or as the Christian Church 
has called him, Christ, is the person receiving the highest 
degree of veneration; secondly, the doctrine of Jesus; 
and, lastly, the sacraments and ceremonies. We will 
first consider the dogmas and ceremonies, and will examine 
the doctrine of Jesus in a special chapter, which will be 
devoted to him. 



Tlie Dogmas. 

A dogma is an article of belief; and all the articles of 
belief of Christianity have been established by councils, 
often held under the most revolting conditions of quarrel 
and strife. For instance, the councils at Ephesus in 431, 
and that at Chalcedon in 451, were noted for the brutal 
excesses and revolting means used to obtain a majority. 
The former is known in history as the " Synod of Rob- 
bers." In these councils it was discussed which articles of 
belief should be recognized as orthodox; and thus the 
fundamental principles of Christianity were formed by 
men. 

At the Council of Nice, in 325, it was discussed 
whether Christ should be considered the Son of God. 
Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, and his followers were 

(45) 



4 o THE LOMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

opposed to this doctrine. Arius explained that in the 
idea of a son there was the necessary condition of time; 
there must have been a pei iod when the son did not exist, 
and also a time when his existence commenced ; from 
which it was evident that the Father was older than the 
Son. The Arians were outvoted, and it was established 
that Jesus was the Son of God. The Council of Chalcedon 
declared the union of the divine and human nature in 
Jesus, and the Council of Constantinople, in 381, promul- 
gated the doctrine of the Holy Ghost. We see that until 
the year 325 the belief in one God was accepted by the 
followers of Christianity; until 381 the duality of God 
was accepted ; and after that the idea of the Trinity, three 
persons in one, has been the fundamental principle of 
Christianity. 

Not one of the dogmas of the Church has been accepted 
without bitter strife and contention ; yet the Church has 
maintained that all councils have taken place under the 
immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit. Can the idea of 
holiness be reconciled with strife and contention ? The 
two councils of modern times, that of 1854 and that of 
1869-70 in Rome, may deserve a brief mention here. At 
the first the Immaculate Conception of Mary and her 
mother Anna were promulgated as doctrines of the Church ; 
at the latter the Infallibility of the Pope was established 
as a dogma. A great number of bishops who were at the 
council voted against this doctrine of papal infallibility. 
They were, however, compelled to accept it, and now 
pretend to believe in it. In such manner these dogmas 
have been created by men; and those who are unwilling 
to be forced into belief, and will not act against the 
dictates of their reason or become hyprocrites, are con- 



CHRISTIANITY. 47 

demned as heretics. Yet they look up to one eternal God, 
the foundation of all love ; they believe in Him with un- 
changeable faith, and find in Him all enjoyment of life 
and all comfort needed in the wonderful hours of their 
existence. Christianity is generally considered to belong 
to the monotheistic religions, — namely, those whose fol- 
lowers believed in one God. But as the belief of Chris- 
tians includes God the Father, God the Son, and God the 
Holy Ghost, Christianity belongs in reality to the poly- 
theistic creeds, — to those which recognize more than one 
God. Jesus and his disciples, as Israelites, were raono- 
theistics ; but this creed, as we have said, ceased with the 
Council of Nice. The only monotheistics of to-day 
are the Israelites and the Mohammedans. 

There is not a single passage in the Bible by which we 
could sustain the idea of the godhead of Christ. On the 
contrary, Jesus always speaks of himself as the Son of 
Man. He speaks, indeed, of God as his father, and he 
commanded his disciples to pray to our father, from 
which it is evident he considered God not only his father 
but the father of all men. 

As regards the principal person of the Christian faith, 
that of the Son of God, we may mention that the idea of 
a son of God did not originate with Christianity, but 
dates from a much more remote period. The history of 
Christ, as given in the Bible, resembles several heathen 
traditions so much that it is impossible not to connect the 
origin of this biblical story with several more ancient 
myths. It is said that Pythagoras, who lived about 600 
years before Jesus, was considered by his contemporaries 
to be a son of a god. It was by no means uncommon in 
those days to designate the sons of great and distinguished 



48 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

men as sons of gods ; and it is reported that the father of 
Pythagoras, 600 years before Jesus, like Joseph, was in- 
formed in a mysterious manner that a son would be born 
to him who was intended to be a benefactor of mankind ; 
and it is added that the mother of Pythagoras had been 
impregnated by a spirit sent by the god Apollo. Grecian 
mythology offers many instances of sons of gods ; but there 
is a Hindoo legend which is, no doubt, of more ancient 
date than many others, and which bears extraordinary 
resemblance to the story of Jesus as related in the Bible. 

According to this Hindoo legend, the founder of the 
Hindoo religion, Christna (the similarity of the name 
strikes us at once), was the decendant of an ancient royal 
family of the Hindoos. At his birth, .the room in which 
he was born was filled with rays of light, which proceeded 
from his father, Nanda, and from his mother, Deva Maria. 
The origin of the name of the Christian Mary is evidently 
to be found in that of the mother of Christna, as well as 
the Latin denomination of Diva Maria, the divine Mary. 
The parents of Christna, like those of Jesus, fled with 
him to protect him from the persecutions of a tyrant, 
who strongly reminds us of the Herod of the Bible. 
Christna, like Jesus, in his early youth, surprised his 
masters by his wisdom. He had also, like Jesus, one who 
preceded him. The John of the biblical history is called 
Ram among the Hindoos. Christna also received the 
name of the Good Shepherd ; and it is reported that, as a 
token of his humility, he knelt down and washed the feet 
of the Brahmins. One day a woman came to him and 
anoited his hair, which recalls to us the Magdalen of 
the Bible. Christna, like Jesus, performed miracles. 
His first miracle was the healing of a leper. He was crucified 



CHRISTIANITY. 49 

and descended into hell, and rose again from the dead 
and ascended into Voicoutha, the abode of the Indian 
gods. The Baghavat Genta, the book which contains 
the life and doctrines of Christna is, according to phi- 
logolists, one of the most remarkable of the sacred books 
of the Hindoos, and more than four thousand years old. 
Christna is represented as a savior and as a god who be- 
came man to save mankind. All this reminds us vividly 
of the history of Jesus, as related in the Bible. The 
Medes and Persians believed in a promise, said to be de- 
rived from Zoroaster, that a virgin should bring forth a 
child who would be the ruler of the world; his birth 
would be announced by the appearance of a star, which 
would shine so brightly that its light would be visible by 
day. The priests were commanded to worship this child. 

The dogma of the Trinity originates partly in the cir- 
cumstance that among the ancients the number three was 
considered as sacred. Three distinct attributes were 
given to their gods, — the Creator, the Ruler and Pre- 
server, and the Destroyer. 

In the creed of the Hindoos we find three gods, — Brahma 
the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer, 
which as Trimurti forma trinity, and are represented as such. 

The trinity of the Egyptians consisted of the God 
Osiris, the Primary Power ; the goddess lsis, the Eternal 
Wisdom; and their son Horus, who conquered the evil 
spirit Typhon, the devil of the Christians, and delivered 
the world from his bondage. The Egyptians represented 
their Goddess lsis with her child Horus in her arms, stand- 
ing on the crescent of the moon under a panoply of stars, 
exactly as we see the Virgin Mary in many pictures by 

Christian artists. 
4 



50 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The doctrine of Zoroaster contains also the idea of a 
trinity, — Oromasdes the good spirit, and Ahrimanius the 
evil spirit, who are at constant war with each other, from 
which proceeds the third part of the trinity, Life. 

In northern mythology we have the three gods, Wotam, 
Thonar and Freya, forming the trinity. 

The Akkad nation, one of the oldest Scythian people of 
Chaldea, believed, as has been recently discovered by 
Assyrian inscriptions, in a trinity which consisted of the 
following persons : Anna, the divine being of Heaven ; 
Mulge and Ninge, the master and mistress of the Hidden 
Heaven, the abyss; and, lastly, Ea, or Hea, the god of 
the atmosphere, and the watery element, with his wife, 
Dao-Kina, the mistress of the earth. 

Thus we see that we find the idea of a trinity among 
many nations of the pre-Christian era. 

The trinity of tne Christian Church consists, as we have 
said, of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy 
Ghost, and among them the son occupies the first and 
foremost place. The Christian church does not celebrate 
a single festival in honor of the Father ; but several in 
honor of the Son, such as the day of his birth, the period 
of his fasting, his crucifixion, his resurrection and 
ascension. 

The third part of the trinity, the Holy Ghost, is not re- 
ceived with particular honor by Christian people ; there is 
only one day in the calendar devoted to him. 

We find, however, in the Christian Church a number of 
festivals in honor of persons who do not belong to the 
Trinity. Those dedicated to the Virgin Mary occupy the 
first place in Catholic countries. Next to her follows the 
great number of saints, some of whom are of general, 



CHRISTIANITY $i^ 

others only of local, importance, who are frequently adore d 
with more zeal and devotion than the Trinity itself, be- 
cause they are considered the mediators between men and 
those whom they worship. As regards the Virgin Mary, 
she is by no means the same person in different countries ; 
for instance, the Virgin Mary of Mexico is a very different 
being from the Virgin Mary of Bethlehem. The former 
is a dark-colored Mexican woman, of thorough Indian 
type, and the child Jesus, whom she holds in her arms, has 
also the deep color of the children of the country. 

The doctrine of the Trinity has not been recognized by 
all Christian denominations. Among the old sects the 
following were opposed to it : The Arians* the Basili- 
dans, the Carpocratians, the Collyridians, the Entichians, 
the Gnostics, the Jacobites, the Marcionites, the Mario- 
nites, the Nestorians, Sabellians and Valentinians. The 
Marionites imagined the Trinity to consist of God the 
Father, God the Son, and God the Virgin Mary. The 
Collyridians worshiped the Virgin Mary as a divinity, 
and brought sacrifices to her. The Nestorians denied 
that God could have had a mother. The Macedonians, 
in the fourth century, denied the godhead of the Holy 
Spirit. The Sabellians (250 to 260) insisted upon the 
unity of God, and considered the doctrine of the Trinity 
as immaterial. The community of the Christian Connec- 
tion, which, in 1793, seceded from the Methodist-Episco- 
palians, rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. The 
Swedenborgians dissent from the doctrine of the Trinity 
as established by the Christian Church. The Hicksites 
and Unitarians do not believe in the Trinity ; and the 
Puritan Community of Salem, Massachusetts, which was 
established in the year 1629, discarded the belief in the 



52 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

godhead of Jesus. Of the Old Puritan Communities 
founded in 1700, thirty-nine have become Unitarians. 
The Greek Church does not celebrate the festival of the 
Trinity; and the Shakers believe that Jesus returned to 
earth in the year 1747 in the person of a woman, Anna 
Lee, to establish, by a second redemption, the millennium. 
In many other Christian sects we find a decided dissent 
from a belief in a trinity. One of the great reformers of 
the Christian Church, Luther, who in his Articles of 
Faith, very .distinctly recognizes the idea of a trinity, very 
inconsistently raises decided doubts about it in other of 
hiswritings. In vol. xxii. p. 762, andin vol. xiii. p. 1726, of 
Walch's edition of Luther's w r orks, we find: " Of the 
Holy Trinity * * * This is one of the most difficult 
things. Our reason can be brought to believe that a child 
was born of a virgi 1, because God is almighty, but it 
cannot understand that three persons exist in one divine 
being, all of equal might, and that God himself has be- 
come man. Reason can never accept that one is three, 
and three are one." 

We cannot imagine that Luther found it possible to 
believe that a virgin brought forth a child, whilst he had 
his doubts about a trinity ; and yet he established the latter 
as an article of faith. 

We must mention here two other reformers who did 
not doubt the doctrine of the Trinity, but on the con- 
trary, defended it in the most violent manner, — Calvin 
and Melanchthon. The fanatical Calvin found the heart to 
surrender to the stake the noble-hearted Michael Servetus, 
who would not agree that three are one and one is three; 
and so great was the bigotry of those times, that 
the gentle Melanchthon approved of Calvin's horrible 



CHRISTIANITY. 53 

deed, and congratulated him upon the destruction of the 
heretic. 

We can find in no passage in the Bible a justification of 
the doctrine of the Trinity. Frequent attempts have 
been made to derive it from a text in the New Testament, 
from a passage of Matthew, xxviii. 19, in which Jesus says 
to his disciples : " Go and teach all nations, and baptize 
them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy 
Ghost." This passage cannot be found in any other 
writing of the Evangelists, and this circumstance subjects 
the genuineness of Jesus's command, as reported by 
Matthew, to grave doubt, as it can scarcely be supposed 
that such a highly important command should not have 
been reported by the others. In the sayings of Jesus, in 
the Sermon on the Mount, in the Lord's prayer, in the 
Parable of the Sower, of the Pharisee and the Publican, of 
the Lost Penny, of the Barren Fig Tree, and of many 
others, we find nothing, not even the slightest authority 
for the doctrine of the Trinity, which, as we have said 
before, was introduced in 381, nearly four hundred years 
after the birth of Jesus. 

Christianity has not placed the idea of God clearly and 
distinctly before the human mind ; but, by its dogma of 
the Trinity, that three are one and one is three, it has 
substituted a mystery which no one has been able to com- 
prehend, The Church itself declares this dogma to be a 
mystery, and attempts to explain it in the following 
manner : 

" The mystery consists in this, that there is only one 
God and yet three persons, — namely, God the Father, God 
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Each of these per- 
sons is God, yet there are not three gods, because these 



54 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

three divine persons have only one divine being; they are 
only three distinct persons in one godhead. The Father 
is in himself from eternity ; the Son is begotten by the 
Father from eternity ; and the Holy Ghost proceeds from 
the Father and the Son from eternity." Is it possible 
for any human being endowed with reason, who is trying 
earnestly and honestly to understand this explanation, to 
find any sense in it ? Even the most believing Christian, 
if he reflects at all about it, must feel hurt at being com- 
pelled to imagine the Supreme Being as consisting of three 
distinct persons, each of whom has his own particular 
functions ; still more so if he remembers that he is com- 
pelled to believe in a dogma which was established many 
centuries ago. Nothing has created more strife and con- 
tention and bloody persecutions than this doctrine of the 
Trjnity. 

There are many passages in the Bible which directly 
contradict this dogma ; for instance, I. Timothy ii. 5 : 
".For there is one God, and one mediator between God 
and men, the man Christ Jesus." Isaiah xlvi. 9: "/am 
God and there is none else ; I am God, and there is none 
likeme. n The First Commandment, as given in II. Moses 
xx. 2, 3 : " /am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no 
other Gods before me." 

The doctrine of the Church is impressed upon man from 
his earliest childhood, and instead of teaching him that 
there is but one Supreme Being, to whom we owe worship 
and adoration, he is taught also that God has had a son, 
and this son has had a mother, both of whom were human 
beings , yet that the son has become God, and the 
mother also, — who is indeed called the "Mother of 
God," — to both of whom adoration is due. To these two 



CHRISTIANITY. 55 

Gods there is added a third, the Holy Spirit. This belief 
in wonders is against all human reason and against the 
laws of nature ; this polytheism is taught us from our 
earliest childhood, and we are told that we must believe in 
it, at the penalty of eternal damnation. Thus reason is 
killed within us, and love to the eternal God is rooted out 
of our hearts ; for a great many people, because they can- 
not believe such doctrines which are against all reason, 
reject, with the belief in Christian dogmatism, also the 
belief in God ; and they remain without a fast faith 
throughout their life, like a slender reed, which helplessly 
bends to every breath of passion. 

The Christian Church speaks much of sins against the 
Holy Ghost, meaning by this the unbelief in ecclesiasti- 
cal dogmas ; but the real Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, 
and the sin against the spirit of truth is the belief in false 
doctrines, miracles and supernatural things, which the 
Church demands of us. The spirit of truth teaches 
exactly the contrary of that which the Christian Church 
designates as a sin against the Holy Spirit. The striving 
after truth is always a holy action, and the spirit which 
calls it forth is the genuine Holy Spirit. What advantage 
can man derive from the belief of the divinity of Jesus, 
or in the doctrine of the Trinity ? What blessings can 
they confer upon him ? Can the belief in these dogmas 
bring comfort to our heart when it has suffered a serious 
loss, the loss of a beloved, faithful being? Or is not the 
saying " What God does is well done" the best and 
surest comforter ? Can a man who has gone astray, who 
reproaches himself about the past, and is determined to 
do better in the future, find any comfort in the belief in 
such dogmas ? Or is not his confidence in God' s forgive- 



56 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

ness and fatherly love the only blissful and pacifying com- 
forter? Can a man who for years has been lying on a bed 
of sickness and is longing for delivery from his sufferings, 
can he find any comfort in the divinity of Jesus or in the 
doctrine of the Trinity ? Or will he not rather look up 
cheerfully to God's love, which has often imposed heavy 
trials upon us, yet never more than we were able to bear ? 
Will he not find comfort in the thought that all things are 
good to those who love God ? 

The dogmas of the resurrection and ascension are also 
contradictory to natural laws and to our reason ; and if we 
look into the Bible, we shall find many contradictory 
statements as regards the resurrection of Jesus. Accord- 
ing to Matthew, xxviii. i, it was Mary Magdalen and 
another Mary who went to the grave of Jesus. Accord- 
ing to Luke, xxiv. 10, it was the two Marys and Joanna 
and other women who went there. According to John, xx. 
i, it was Mary Magdalen alone who went and said, 
" They have taken away the Lord." According to Mat- 
thew, xxviii. 2, an angel came from heaven and rolled 
away the stone from the sepulchre and sat down upon it. 
According to Mark, xvi. 5, the angel did not sit upon 
the stone, but sat within the sepulchre on the right-hand side. 
Again, Mark says that a youth sat at the right side. Luke 
speaks of two youths, and John of two angels. According 
to Luke, again, they did not sit, but tht-y came to them. 
In Matthew, xxviii. 5 and 6, the angel spoke to the 
women. In John it was Jesus hiinself who spoke. Ac- 
cording to Luke, xxiv. 12, Peter did not go into the grave. 
According to John, xx. 4-8, he entered the sepulchre, 
and another disciple with him. According to Matthew, 
xxviii. 9, they fell down before him and touched his feet. 



CHRISTIANITY. 57 

According to John, xx. 17, Jesus would not allow them to 
touch him, etc. 

We can see that here are a number of contradictions, 
which in themselves would awaken serious doubts as to the 
truthfulness of the event ; and even if we do not suppose 
that the writers wilfully told an untruth, we should re- 
member that in those days little or nothing was known of 
the laws of nature, and that people were inclined to look 
upon everything in the light of a miracle. 

The idea of the resurrection of the dead had its origin in 
Persian religious writings, from whence it found its way 
into Judaism and Christianity, and it finally became a 
Christian dogma. The laws of nature are no longer a 
sealed book to our times, and nobody will believe that a 
man who is once dead can be brought to life again. 

The dogma of the ascension of Christ, which is similar 
to that of Elijah in a fiery chariot, belongs to those 
myths which abound in the Bible, and which are charac- 
teristic of the spirit of those days. Irrespective of the 
circumstance that nobody can point out the spot in which 
the so-called heaven is situated, into which Jesus is said to 
have ascended, we know in these days that the ascension 
of a man into the atmosphere, according to an unchange- 
able or natural law, the law of gravitation, is a positive 
impossibility. The narratives of the resurrection and 
ascension of Jesus are an ornamental addition to the his- 
tory of his death. The story of his ascension is only to 
be found in Mark and Luke, whilst John and Matthew 
say nothing about it. 

Jesus has said and has taught much which is good, true 
and beautiful ; but all he has said would have been 
scattered like leaves before the autumnal wind, scattered 



5$ THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

and lost, if it had not been gathered and made into a 
wreath, and thus preserved to posterity by this poetical 
addition of the resurrection and the ascension. 

The dogma of our redtmptio?i through the blood of 
Jesus owes its origin to the old Jewish practice of sacrificing 
steers and lambs to reconcile the anger of Jehovah. We 
can also trace it in the old heathenish custom of sacrific- 
ing men to regain the good-will of an angry god. It rests 
further upon the dogma of hereditary sin, according to 
which, by the fall of our first parents, all mankind has be- 
come corrupt and has lost eternal happiness. 

Supposing, for the sake of argument, that the story of 
Adam and Eve, as it is related in the Bible, "is true and 
not a fable, is it not unworthy of the idea of a Gcd who 
not only condemned the first man but all the generations 
after him, because they followed the desire which with 
wise providence he had planted within them, with the 
blessing: " Be fruitful and multiply"? — a desire which 
is not only of a sensual nature, but which offers also the 
most supreme spiritual union which can be imagined among 
men. 

The father of this horrible doctrine is Augustine, who 
maintained that through the fall sinfulness and mortality 
have become the inheritance of all mankind, even so 
that the new-born baby, by this inherited sin, is inflicted 
with the curse of God, and can only be delivered from it 
by the grace of God through baptism. 

The Christian Church is by no means unanimous in ts 
definition of what hereditary sin is, and the different di- 
visions of the Church vary in their explanation of it. 
The Catholics declare the dogma of hereditary sin in this 
manner : That the spiritual gilts of men have not been 



CHRISTIANITY. 59 

destroyed, but merely corrupted ; that the image of God, 
after which man was created, is still within him, only that 
he has lost his likeness to God. The Reformers of the 
sixteenth century taught that by the fall the whole being 
of man has been changed, that he has become enslaved, 
and that his concupiscence, even after baptism, still re- 
mains a sin ; whilst the Council of Trent declares that 
wise concupiscence cannot be considered a sin. The 
Pelagians, in the fourth century, taught that Adam 
would have died even if he had not sinned, and that his 
fall was accounted a sin to him only, and that all children 
are born free from sin as Adam was before the fall. Pro- 
testant rationalism describes hereditary sin as the weakness 
of human nature in recognizing and doing what is good. 
Some theologians of our times agree with Origen, who 
maintained that hereditary sin had its origin in an inclina- 
tion toward evil which existed before man came upon this 
earth, and in consequence of which all human souls have 
been condemned to this earth as a punishment. 

We see that not one schoc 1 of theology can give a satis- 
factory meaning of the term " hereditary sin," nor put it 
in such form as to make it understood by men ; yet the 
thinking man must see the impossibility of it. How op- 
posed to the love and justice of God is the idea of heredi- 
tary sin ! And if sin really descended from Adam upon 
all men, how could there possibly be a pure and righteous 
man ? But history teaches us that at all times and among 
all nations, whether Christian or not, there have been 
excellent and perfectly pure-niinded men. There is 
no hereditary sin ; there can be none, for sin is alone 
that wrong which man commits consciously and vol- 
untarily. 



60 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Upon this dogma of hereditary sin the dogmas of hell 
and eternal punishment have been based, on which, again, 
that of redemption by the blood of Jesus has been founded. 

The dogma of he J and eternal punishment, although it 
is accepted in the Christian Church, may truly be called 
a hellish one. Like other Christian dogmas it has been 
interpreted in various ways. In a discussion betw een two 
Methodist ministers — Newman and Fowler — on this sub- 
ject, two different views were exposed which deserve 
mention. We should state that formerly it was more a 
question of whether there is a hell or not, and, if there 
is one, whether those who are sent there will remain there 
forever, or only suffer for a certain time ; whilst at 
present the issue is still about the nature and duration of 
punishment, yet in a greater degree about those who are 
condemned or will be condemned to go to hell. Both 
ministers agreed that there was a hell, but in other respects 
they were of different opinions on this subject. Fowler, 
who stands at the 1 ead of a missionary society for the 
conversion of the heathen, maintains that all these hundreds 
of millions of heathens are condemned to suffer in hell 
unless they are converted to Christianity, and that this 
conversion can only take place through the exertion of 
missionaries. Newman, on the other hand, maintains that 
not all the heathens will go to hell, but that an exception 
will be made in favor of many. Mr. Newman does not 
state where the line is to be drawn between those who will 
be damned and those who wi il be saved. He thinks that 
the children of heathens, before they have grown old 
enough to distinguish good from evil, will not go to hell, 
and he would also make this exception in favor of many 
grown-up heathens. 



CHRISTIANITY. 61 

Much more definitely have two other Christian ministers 
— one a Catholic and the other a Presbyterian — expressed 
themselves on the subject ; so definitely, indeed, that one 
feels inclined to see devils in them, so vividly do they 
portray the torments of hel. In a monastery in West- 
phalia, a Catholic priest expressed himself as follows about 
the torments of hell : " Imagine that you* have the most 
fearful pain in a tooth — a pain which would not give you 
a moment's rest, which would never allow you to close 
your eyes in slumber, that you had this pain which would 
drive you crazy, not in one, or two, or ten, but in every 
tooth in your mouth; that would only be child's play 
compared to the torments which the sinner will have to 
suffer in hell. Or imagine that you were compelled to 
hold one finger into a flame, but not only one finger, but 
a second and a third, or ten, both hands, your legs, your 
head, your whole body, and you had no power to escape, 
and had to suffer these tortures with full conscience for all 
eternity. And have you an idea of the meaning of 
eternity ? If all the water of the ocean had to be taken 
out, and if it decreased but one drop in a million years, 
when all the seas have been emptied eternity would only 
have commenced. And such torments all shall suffer who 
commit sin on this earth. " 

The Presbyterian minister Furniss gave the following 
description of hell : "Down in this place is a horrible 
noise. Listen to the tremendous, the horrible uproar of 
millions and millions of tormented creatures, mad with the 
fury of hell ! Oh ! the screams of fear, the groans of 
horror, the yells of rage, the cries of pain, the shouts of 
agony, the shrieks of despair from millions on millions ! 
There you hear them roaring like lions, hissing like ser- 



62 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

pents, howling like dogs, and wailing like dragons ! 
There you hear the gnashing of teeth and the fearful 
blasphemies of the devils. Above all y.ou hear the roar of 
the thunder of God's anger which shakes hell to its foun- 
dations." He described the inmates of this hell suffering, 
without a moment's cessation, the most frightful tortures. 
He gravely says: "The roof is red-hot. The floor is 
like a sheet of .red-hot iron. See, on the middle of that 
red->.ot iron stands a girl. She looks to be abcut 16 years 
of age. She has neither shoes nor stockings on her feet. 
The door of this room has never been opened since she 
first set her foot on the red-hot floor. Now she sees the 
opening. She rushes forward. She has gone down upon 
her knees upon the red-hot floor. Listen ! She speaks. 
She says : ' I have been standing with my bare feet on 
this red-hot floor for years. Day and night my only stand- 
ing-place has been on this red hot floor. Sleep never 
came on me for a moment that I might forget tkis horrible 
burning floor. Look at my burnt and bleeding feet. Let 
me go off this burning floor for a moment. Oh, that in 
this endless eternity of years I might forget the pain only 
for one single moment ! ■ The devil answers her question: 
1 Do you ask for a moment, for one moment, to forget 
your pain ? No ! not for a single moment during the never- 
ending eternity of years shall you ever leave this red hot 
floor. ' " Mr. Furniss locates his hell in the center of the 
earth, and says it is 4000 miles from the earth's surface 
on either side. 

The same Mr. Furniss has published in England some 
pamphlets for the " spiritual " education of children. He 
feels that future punishment is not pictured vividly enough, 
and he has done his best to supply the want. After de- 



CHRISTIANITY. 63 

scribing the " Dress of Fire," and the " Red-hot Floor," 
in which are represented girls with the devil taunting 
their agonies, he goes on to picture the " Red-hot Oven," 
as follows: "See! it is a pitiful sight. The little child 
is in this red-hot oven ! Hear how it screams to come 
out! See how it turns and twists itself about in the fire ! 
It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps 
its little feet upon the floor of the oven. You can see 
upon the face of this little child what you see on the face 
of all in hell — despair, desperate and horrible." 

Leaving out of the quest ion the innocent child, which 
has only been condemned for not having received baptism, 
let us consider the criminal loaded with the curse of dam- 
nation, and we " miserable men" must boil over with pity 
and indignation. To be condemned forever ! forever 
a punishment without end ! a punishment comprehend- 
ing the incomprehensible infiniteness ! The Church 
teaches us that God punishes men in order to make them 
better ; but after infinity there is nothing ; no repentance 
is possible. Thus punishment would only exist as punish- 
ment, and the loving, all-just God would only appear as a 
pitiless judge, who finds satisfaction in tormenting those 
creatures which have been made by him — torment them 
for all eternity and in the most horrible manner! torment 
them without end and without aim ! What a horrible 
doctrine ! 

If the devil, of whom the Christian Church teaches, had 
invented these descriptions, these pictures of hell, they 
could not be more revolting, more hideous, more terrible. 
And now, imagine that there are people who really believe 
in hell, this monster-birth of darkest superstition. Think 
of such men who have lost their dearest ones ly death, and 



64 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

think of them as tortured in the torments of hell. What 
can be the feeling of such people ? Can we wonder that 
so many persons, in brooding over these Christian dogmas, 
have lost their reason and are crowding the mad-houses ? 
No ! there is no hell ! Heaven and hell, according to 
our own will and actions, live in our conscience ; and 
God's fatherly love watches over us. Even he who is not 
free from sin or wrong need not fear hell. If he who has 
done wrong repents honestly and sincerely, he may com- 
fort himself with the beautiful thought that if our heart 
condems us, God is more merciful than our heart. 

The dogma of the redemption through the crucifixion of 
an innocent man, like that of the Trinity, does not 
originate in Christianity, Centuries before the birth of 
Jesus the idea of redemption can be found in different 
forms among the Hindoos, the Persians, the Semitics, the 
Chinese and the Greeks, but most distinctly among the 
Israelites, not only with a view of a life after death, but of 
the immediate future on earth. The great misery which 
wars brought upon the Jewish race required immediate 
help ; they desired not only redemption in a future life, 
but longed for an early delivery from the suffering of the 
present time. This desire grew into hope and this hope 
kept the Jewish people in constant expectation. They 
hoped and expected, day after day, the coming of the 
Messiah, who would deliver them from the bondage of 
the Romans, and make them the rulers of all ot'er nations. 

But even before that time we find the legend of a re- 
deemer, who, like Jesus, died upon the cross. Kersey 
Graves, in a work recently published, furnishes proof that, 
before Jesus, not less than fifteen redeemers suffered death 
upon the cross. They are the following : 



CHRISTIANITY. 65 

Thulis of Egypt 1700 B. C. 

Chritus of Chaldea 1200 " 

Chrisjna of India 1200 " 

Atys of Phrygia 11 70 " 

Hesus of the Celts 834 " 

Thammuz of Syria 800 " 

Indra of Thibet . . . . . . 725 " 

Bali of Orisa 725 " 

Iao of Nepaal 620 ft 

Alcestor of Greece 600 " 

Mithra of Persia 6co " 

Sakia of India 600 " 

Quekalcote of Mexico . . . . . 587 " 
Witoba of the Telingonese . . 550 " 

Quirinus of Rome 506 " 

We see that long before the time of Jesus martyrdom 
upon the cross was suffered by eminent men for the re- 
demption of the world. And it may be remarked here 
that Christna of the Hindoos is believed to return to this 
earth before the end of all things, to conquer Rachchasas, 
the prince of hell ; which recalls at once the promised re- 
turn of Jesus and the last day of Judgment. 

Redemption, as the Christian Church teaches it, is a 
mystery which belongs to those wonders which, like 
others of the Christian faith, are opposed to the eternal 
laws of nature. The doctrine of redemption by the 
blood of Jesus is repugnant to the idea of God's divine 
justice, which could not permit an innocent man to suffer 
for the sins of others, for the sins of the whole world. It 
cannot proceed from divine mercy ; for mercy would be- 
come guilt, if it were subservient to injustice. 

And if Jesus had been a god, as Christianity teaches 
5 



66 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

us, what becomes of the merit of the services which he 
rendered to humanity ? If he had been a god, it was only 
right that he should be without sin ; he could not possibly 
have felt bodily or mental pain, but would have been 
above everything that causes pain. That he was a man, 
and felt like a man, we find in his prayer: " Father, if it 
be possible let this cup pass from me \ " and, in his last 
cry : " My God ! my God ! why has thou forsaken me ?' ' 
If we take it for granted that Jesus was a man, and, like 
many before him and many after him, suffered for the sake 
of his convictions, we are undoubtedly right. By this he 
not only can lose nothing of his worthiness, but, on the 
contrary, he will become dearer to us and gain more of 
our heart's innermost esteem, as his doctrine is immeasur- 
ably superior to that of any other philosopher, his sublime 
doctrine of love which has never before been preached so 
beautifully and so impressively. It is this beautiful doctrine 
which will finally redeem mankind '; and in this acceptation 
alone is Jesus the redeemer of the world. Christianity has 
by no means fulfilled its sacred task, but has left it un- 
heeded ; yet the word of Jesus is not lost, and a time will 
come when the principle of humanity which this sublime 
man preached will become a blissful reality. 

The history of Christianity has taught that although the 
doctrine of Jesus has been preached, it has never grown 
into universal practice ; yet the salvation of the world de- 
pends upon the realization of his word, which will redeem 
man from all wrong, from all sin, and from all evil. 
When love ceases to be a mere hollow name and becomes 
a blissful reality, when the words of Jesus, ' ' Love ye one 
another," become truth, then, and only then, all wrong 
and all evil will and must cease in this world. 



CHRISTIANITY. 67 

A pious man of the fifteenth century, Thomas-a-Kempis, 
wrote a celebrated book called the " Imitation of Christ," 
which contains much that is excellent and good. Yet it 
would be folly for men to try to imitate and follow him if 
he were a God; but if he was a many then men may take 
courage and follow him ; for then we have the hope of be- 
coming like him, if we cannot become equal to him. 
What abuse, what sacrilege, has been committed since the 
introduction of the dogma of redemption ! How foolish, 
how wicked is it to imagine that man can obtain content- 
ment by anything else except by his own merits, by love 
of his neighbor, and by doing what is right. It is certainly 
much more comfortable to rely upon the death of Jesus, 
and the so-called means of grace of the Church, than to 
strive arduously and incessantly after salvation. Do not 
those who preach this nonsense understand that it is not 
honoring God, but degrading him, if we think that we 
can please him in any other way except by the faithful ful- 
fillment of our duty and by living a righteous life ? The 
word of a priest cannot relieve us from the responsibility 
of a wrong and a sin which we have committed. Repent- 
ance, which has been wrought by the fear of death, the 
unction with the so-called holy oil, the partaking of the 
sacrament by a man who has lived a life of injustice, can- 
not outweigh a long life of honest and true fulfillment of 
our duty, even if we do not believe in Christian dogmas. 

According to the doctrines of Christianity, the whole 
human race was lost on account of the first fall, and it had 
no possible chance of redeeming itself. Then God in his 
mercy sent down his own Son, that he, who was without 
sin, might redeem the whole world from sin by the 
sacrifice of his own life. The condition under which we 



68 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

partake of this redemption is the 1 elief in the dogmas of 
the deity of Jesus and of redemption. By this belief, 
sinful humanity, which through the fall was condemned to 
eternal damnation, shall share the sinlessness of Jesus and 
be delivered from punishment. 

A Hindoo expressed himself a few years ago on this 
dogma as follows : " The most unreasonable and distaste- 
ful doctrine connected with Christianity is the doctrine of 
sacrifice and redemption, or salvation through atoning 
blood. To us, not only the life of ma \ but that of the 
insect, is sacred and irrevocable. Our first commandment 
is, " Do not kill." And then to ask us to believe that the 
God of all worlds could only save the human race by the 
killing or the shedding of the blood of his innocent son 
is, to me, and must be in the opinion of any Buddhist, 
abhorrent, if not -really blasphemous." 

Christianity teaches us that God judges men according 
to their faith. Who believes in the doctrines of the Church 
will be justified ; who does not believe will remain sinful. 
" He who believes and is baptized will be saved. He who 
does not believe will be condemned." This is the 
language of the Bible. 

The most degraded of mankind, if they only express 
repentance at the last moment of their sinful life, and 
acknowledge their belief in the dogmas of the Christian 
Church, are sure of salvation ; whilst the noblest of all 
men, who has been a benefactor of his fellow-creatures, 
but does not believe in those dogmas, will be damned for 
eternity. Every hypocritical fanatic, every dishonorable 
man who has betrayed and robbed widows and orphans, 
every tyrant who has trampled under foot the rights and 
liberties of nations, if they are only cunning enough to 



CHRISTIANITY. 69 

cheat the devil of his inheritance, and believe at the last 
moment before they are going to close their eyes, will 
enter into eternity with a crown of glory ; whilst the great 
and good men, who have been a blessing to their genera- 
tion, will enter into eternal damnation. The worst of all 
criminals, the murderer, if, at the last moment when the 
noose is around his neck, he professes the Christian 
dogmas, he is sure of salvation and of a life of joy with 
Jesus and the angels ; whilst the good man whom he has 
murdered, but who does not believe in the Christian 
dogma, is damned for all time, and subjected to the most 
horrible sufferings. 

This dogma of the redemption, instead of making bad 
men better, must, on the contrary, make them worse. If 
such men believe that they only need acknowledge the 
dogmas of the Church to be delivered from their sin, why 
should they shun evil actions, why should they not con- 
tinue in their wicked ways if they know that the blood of 
Jesus will cleanse them from all sins ? The Italian bandits, 
who make a business of robbery and murder, carry the 
rosary attached to their belt. They kneel down to pray 
to Christ and the Mother of God when the bell rings for 
mass. They go to confession and immediately afterwards 
resume their detestable occupation of robbery and murder. 
Is that not the natural consequence of this dogma of 
redemption ? The sale of Tetzel's Letters of Indulgence 
was based on the same dogma. We need only cast a 
glance into the dens of vice in our large cities, where men 
wallow in the filth of corruption and crime, to be assured 
that many of these would renounce their lives of 
wickedness if they did not find in the dogma of re- 
demption the hope of future impunity, and if they 



70 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

were assured that only an honorable life can lead to a 
good end. 

And what has become of the millions of people who 
lived before Jesus was born ? What will become of the 
millions who are living to-day and who are not Christians? 
(only one-third of the people living on earth are professed 
Christians). And what will become of the millions that 
will be born not Christians ? Are they all doomed to 
eternal damnation ? Have virtue and purity of morals 
no more influence than belief in a dogma which has been 
invented by man ? 

The great reforming work of Jesus, which elevated man- 
kind to the sublime idea of universal love, is not in want 
of mysteries about his birth and death. It does not re- 
quire any miracles, which have exercised no noble in- 
fluences on humanity, which, on the contrary, have only 
caused fanaticism or moral turpitude, which have led to 
divisions, misunderstandings, strife and superstition, and 
have brought war and bloodshed into the world. 

The belief of the redemption of the world by the blood 
of Jesus is an illusion. Lord Erskine said : "If during 
our lives we have tried to attain that which is good, we 
may with all our weaknesses and faults enter into the 
darkness of death with the same joyfulness as in the ordi- 
nary paths of our lives ; for we know that the author of 
our being will not arise against us, as an inflexible ac- 
cuser of those moments of weakness which, like a few in- 
comprehensible passages in a good book, have darkened 
the leaves of an otherwise glorious and well-spent life, but 
that his mercy will wipe them out and do away with our 
repentance forever." 

These are golden words ! But, in truth, mankind has 



CHRISTIANITY. 71 

not yet been redeemed ; it must rather redeem itself; and, 
in the first instance, it must cast off those fetters of dog- 
matic belief in miracles and wonders with which the 
Church holds it in bondage. Only when this has hap- 
pened a new morning will dawn ; only then peace and 
happiness-will rule upon earth, and brotherly love, which 
we see so sublimely realized in the person of Jesus, will 
celebrate its real festival of the resurrection. 

Let us cling to God as our father, let us depend upon 
him with full and childlike confidence, like a good child 
puts in his own father, and then we need no more a re- 
deemer between us and God than a child needs a 
redeemer between itself and its earthly parent. We our- 
selves must be our own redeemers. But this self-redemp- 
tion requires all our energy. No thought, no desire, no 
word and no action of our lives are unimportant ; on the 
contrary, we should watch over them with all our strength 
of mind ; otherwise, they will become the links of a 
chain which will drag us down to a routine of indifference, 
from which self-redemption, by a mere transitory will, is 
impossible. Our reason and our conscience, which teach 
us to do right and to practice love, are the powers which 
give us strength for self redemption, and we should all take 
an active part in this work. Only if we strive incessantly 
to make our fellow-creatures happy; when every one will 
contribute his mite to bring about this noble aim ; only 
when that mighty and corrupting egotism of our days has 
disappeared ; only then the stone which still is lying on 
the grave of humanity can be rolled away ; and the true 
redeemer, universal brotherly love, will arise from it. 

There is so much misery and wretchedness in the world, 
by the side of so much that is beautiful and elevating ; so 



72 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

much misery which is the cause of crimes, so many neg 
lee ted children who are brought into life by unconscien- 
tious parents, who grow up without a good example and 
without education, and who lead a life which is unworthy 
of man. Here, again, is a wide field for the work of re- 
demption. 

Let us not lament and stretch out our hands towards a 
redeemer on the cross. Let us look into our own hearts, 
and try and deliver ourselves from all that is not good ; 
then we shall be capable of taking part in the great work of 
the redemption of mankind. Let us try to become better. 

But you must have the moral courage openly to confess 
your conviction and to pronounce it earnestly before the 
world ', you must not wince before those who strive to 
subdue the spirit of truth, and before those who are their 
fettered slaves. In the spirit of every one who strives 
toward truth lives the power and the duty to contribute to 
the salvation of mankind. 



Tfre Sects. 



Even during the lifetime of the apostles a difference of 
opinion arose among the followers of Jesus on the subject of 
his doctrine. These divisions have increased in the course 
of centuries, and at the present moment there exists within 
the Christian Church about three hundred different 
sects, which vary more or less in their views and opinions ; 
whilst the followers of each sect maintain that they alone 
possess the true faith. In the days of the Council of Nice, 
Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, wrote as follows : " It is a 
thing equally deplorable and dangerous that there are as 
many creeds as opinions of men, as many doctrines as 



CHRISTIANI rY. 73 

inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there 
are faults among us, because we make creeds arbitrarily. 
Every year — nay, every moon — we make new creeds to 
describe variable mysteries. We repent of what we have 
done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those 
whom we defend ; we condemn either the doctrine of 
others in ourselves or our own in that of others, and re- 
ciprocally tearing each other to pieces, we have been the 
cause of each other's ruin." 

Soon there arose a number of sects, each of which pre- 
tended to represent the true faith, and many of which 
were ready to persecute those who believed differently. 
The Church of Rome was despotic, and the Reformed 
Church not less intolerant. Luther threatened persecu- 
tion, Calvin carried it out. A Protestant parliament per- 
secuted the Catholics ; Catholic priests had to fly for their 
lives, and a reward was put upon their capture. The 
prelates were attacked by the Presbyterians, and the Pres- 
byterians by the Independents. Cromwell's armies 
marched through the country, praying and murdering ; 
they shouted, " Hosanna!" and sang psalms, waving their 
swords steeped in the blood of Catholics and Episcopalians. 

Christianity itself does not agree on its fundamental 
doctrines, and the numerous sects into which it is divided 
vary still more from each other. Many, for instance, con- 
sider that the communion is a symbol of brotherly love, 
and maintain that the bread and wine are merely the sym- 
bols of the body and blood of Jesus, whilst others con- 
sider that at the communion they actually partake of the 
true flesh and Wood of Jesus. Many believe that all men 
are intended for salvation ; others that eternal damnation 
will be the lot of the majority of mankind. Some are 



74 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

looking for Jesus' return to earth, whilst others reject 
this view. Some are looking forward toward the millen- 
nium, whilst others are not. Some see in Jesus the 
true God " in the flesh," others see in him only the Son 
of God, and many consider him only as a highly gifted man 
who has been sent by God for the benefit of the world. 
The doctrine of the Trinity has been the cause of in- 
numerable contentions. Many believe in the existence of 
a hell, others do not. Some maintain the endlessness of 
the punishment in hell, others do not. Some believe in the 
resurrection of the body, others do not. Some believe 
that baptism should be performed by the sprinkling of 
water, whilst others insist upon immersion. It is a much 
disputed question whether Christians of different denomi- 
nations may partake together of the communion, or 
whether one sect has a right to exclude another from it. 
The same differences exist on many other questions, — 
whether the devil is a person, or merely an allegorical 
figure; whether the soul of man, immediately after his 
death, goes to heaven or to hell, or whether it remains in 
a state of unconsciousness until the general day of resur- 
rection. Some accept the so-called miracles as something 
supernatural and incomprehensible, whilst others try to 
explain them. These and many other questions have 
divided Christianity for centuries past, and continue still 
to divide it. Can that which is subject to so much dissent, 
to so many and different definitions, can that be the truth ? 

If we ask ourselves the question, how it has happened 
that so many divisions and differences have been called 
into existence, we must consider that each new sect, as it 
seceded from another, was actuated by the consciousness 
that it could no longer agree with the views of the other. 



CHRISTIANITY. 75 

Thus each sect thinks that it alone possesses the truth, and 
the others are in error. 

For centuries pa t Christianity has been kept in a state 
of constant warfare in consequence of the disputes and 
persecutions among the different sects. Even if the 
person of Jesus has been a certain bond of union among 
them, harmony and peace have not prevailed. Christians 
have hated, persecuted and cursed each other on account 
of their opinions of the meaning, the intentions and the 
doctrines of Jesus. The martyrs who found their deaths 
in prison, or at the stake, the millions of people who 
were killed during the wars of Christianity, are an elo- 
quent but degrading monument of Christian dissent. 

As has been stated before, Christianity has produced, 
since its existence, abou. three hundred different sects. It 
would hardly interest the reader to enumerate all the little 
differences existing among these sects, but it is of im- 
portance to make him acquainted with the principal 
opinions on which they differ. 

The Abyssinians came into existence about 330. They 
observe both the Jewish and the Christian Sabbath, but 
their habits, even to this day, are partly barbarian. 

The Antidicomarianites , opponents of Mary in the. 
fourth century, maintained that Mary had children after 
the birth of Jesus. 

The A ntinomists since 1560, preached that the gospel 
was above the law ; that not good works, but faith alone, 
was necessary for salvation. 

The Appollinarians (390) denied that Jesus possessed a 
human soul. 

The Arians (318) taught that Jesus was neither God 
nor man, but a being of superior qualities to the angels. 



76 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The Armenian Church, founded in the fourth century, re- 
jected the doctrines promulgated by the Council of Chalce- 
don, and maintained that there was but one nature in Jesus. 

The Selected, in Michigan (1882), consider themselves 
the chosen people of God. None of them must own more 
than $3000; all over this must be divided among the poor. 

The Basilidans rejected the Trinity. 

The Iconoclasts, or Image Breakers, a sect of the Greek 
Church in the eight and ninth centuries, were opposed to 
the worship of images of saints. 

The Iconoclasts of Germany, in the sixteenth century, 
had the same objection. 

The Birmingham Congregationalists, in 1882, have no 
other article of faith but " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God and thy neighbor as thyself." 

The Bogomites, of the beginning of the twelfth century, 
denied the Trinity, rejected baptism by water, and only 
accepted spiritual baptism. They abolished the worship 
of the cross, of images and of relics ; they did not observe 
the communion, and declared all churches to be temples 
of idols, and all priests and servants of the church to be 
Pharisees. 

The Buchanites, established in Scotland in 1783, by a 
woman, Elspeth Buchan, maintained that she was the 
third person of the Trinity and the woman mentioned in 
the twelfth chapter of the Revelation. 

The Campbellites, also disciples of Christ, seceded in 
181 2 from the Presbyterians of Pennsylvania and baptized 
only by immersion. 

The Carpocratians reject the Trinity. 

The Chiliasts believed that Jesus, after his return to 
earth, will found the millennium. 



CHRISTIANITY. 77 

The Christian Connection seceded, in 1793, from the 
Methodist Episcopal Church; they rejected the Trinity, 
but believed in Christ as a divine redeemer. 

The Collyridians denied the Trinity, but worshiped the 
Virgin Mary as a godhead and brought sacrifices to her. 

The Docetce, in the fourth century, did not believe that 
Jesus appeared on earth as a man, but only as a spirit. 

The Dorrelites were called after their founder Dorrel, who 
maintained that he was like Jesus, and was invulnerable. 

The Ebionites, in the second century, believed that 
Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary. 

The Encratites, in the second century, abstained from 
marriage and from meat and wine. 

The Eutychians, in the fifth century, recognized in the 
person of Jesus only one nature. 

The Flagellants of the thirteenth and fourteenth centu- 
ries, thought it their duty to chastise themselves in public 
for their own and others' sins.* 

The River Brethren, established since 1705, baptize 
each other. 



* The cruel sect of the Flagellants exists even in our days. We find 
them in existence in some counties of New Mexico. In the little 
town of Los Griegaos they celebrated, on the 24th of March this year, 
their Easter festival. The ceremonies began with a procession of 
about thirty men and women; they marched to their church, a primi- 
tive little hut. There five men undressed themselves down to the 
waist. A master of ceremonies, swinging a heavy whip, opened the 
procession; then followed two penitents, carrying heavy wooden 
crosses, with sharp edges which penetrated into the flesh and drew 
blood. Not satisfied with this, one of them stabbed himself in several 
places with a pointed instrument. Singing a solemn chant of their 
church, they passed through the village street, whipping themselves in 
the most desperate manner ; with each blow blood came, flowing freely, 



78 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The Society of Progressive Friends seceded, in 1853, 
from the Hicksites and rejected the belief in the divinity 
of Jesus and the entire Christian dogma. It does 
not inquire into the faith of its followers, but merely 
requires that they should lead a righteous and virtuous 
life. 

The Society for Gathering the People of God, estab- 
lished in Wurtemberg, is a branch of the Chiliasts, and 
believed that in the year 1853 the Turkish Empire in the 
Holy Land would be overthrown, and that Jerusalem 
would be re-established as the capital of the Millennial 
Messiah. 

The Gnostics rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and 
other Christian dogmas. 

The Harris Christians were established in 1875. Their 
founder is Thomas L. Harris, who pretended to be a 
prophet and the king of his followers, and claimed for his 
wife the rank of queen. Harris rejects the Trinity, and 
preaches a duality in one, Jesus and his wife Jesusa, whose 
representatives on earth he and his wife pretend to be. 

The Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, were established 
in 1830. Their Bible is the Book of Mormon, which is 
said to have been written on two golden tablets and dis- 

and even pieces of flesh adhered to the whip; yet not one cry of pain, 
or a sigh, or a sob was audible. Before they reached the little church 
they had to undergo another heavy trial. At a little distance from the 
door the road had been scattered with the pricks of the cactus plant. 
When the bare-footed penitents reached this spot one of them hesi- 
tated ; a shower of blows came down upon his naked shoulders, and 
with a wild leap he jumped into the thorns. At every step the blood 
poured from his and his companions' feet. The flagellation was con- 
tinued in the church. That was the Easter festival of the Flagellants 
in the latter part of the nineteenth century. 



CHRISTIANITY. 79 

covered in Ontario County, New York, in 1827. They 
recognize the institution of polygamy. 

The Hicksites separated in 1827 from the Quakers, and 
rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. 

The Jacobites in the sixth century rejected the doctrine 
of the Trinity. 

The People of Jehova, established in Mocapin, New- 
Jersey, since 1878. Their rites remind us of the Flag- 
ellants of the Middle Ages, and their Sabbath laws forbid 
the making of fire and cooking on Sundays. 

The Church of God, also called the Winebrunnians, 
after the name of their founder Weinbrunner, believe in 
the millennium. 

The Macedonians of the fourth century denied the 
divinity of the Holy Ghost. 

The Malakans, or Milk Eaters, a Russian sect, on fast 
days live upon milk only. 

The Fifth Monarchy Men, or Millenarians, of Crom- 
well's time, intended to establish a fifth monarchy com- 
prising Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, of which 
Jesus was to be the king. 

The Millenarians have existed since the first three 
centuries of the Christian era ; they believe that Jesus 
would return to earth and found a millennial kingdom. 

The Millerites, so called after their founder Miller, who 
prophesied the end of the world in 1843. 

The Monothelites, of the seventh century, recognized 
only one will in the person of Jesus. 

The Nestor ians, established in the fifth century, did 
not believe in the Trinity, and denied that God could 
have had a mother. 

The New Jerusalem Church, also called Swedenborgians, 



So THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

after their founder, Swedenborg, dissent in many points 
from the Christian dogma. 

The Newjansk Sect, of Russia, established in 1878, 
obse' ves the barbarous custom of taking blood at the com- 
munion instead of wine. 

The Osgoodites, established in 181 2, observe neither the 
Christian Sunday nor the Christian sacraments. 

The Patripassians, established in the second century, 
believed that God had become flesh and died in Jesus. 

The Paulicians, established in 657, recognized only 
Paul as an apostle. 

The Pelagians, in the fourth century, taught that Adam 
would have died if he had not sinned, that his fall was 
reckoned a sin to him alone, and that all children have been 
born pure as Adam was before the fall. 

The Purificants, in Siberia and Finland, a sort of 
Puritans, held for their principal doctrines the obligation 
of matrimony for all marriageable people, the recognition 
of the wife as the head of the family, and the duty of the 
husband to confess to the wife once a week. 

The Restorationists, from the third to the sixth century, 
maintained that finally all men would be saved atd 
sanctified. 

The Sadducees rejected the Trinity. 

The Sabellians, of the third century, rejected the 
Trinity. 

The Sanctificationists, of Texas, believe that a second 
Christ is dwelling now upon earth, and by divine inspira- 
tion is called the Second Christ. This sect, which is only 
a few years old, has already furnished a number of 
inmates to lunatic asylums. 

The Scotists believe in the Immaculate Conception. 



CHRISTIANITY. 8l 

The Severians, of the fifth century, maintained that the 
body of Jesus was liable to corruption. 

The Socinians in the fifteenth century disputed the 
divinity of Jesus and the miraculous conception of Mary. 

The Southcottians, of the second half of the eighteenth 
century, were so called for their foundress, Johanna South- 
cotte, an English servant girl, who pretended to have been 
inspired, and to have been sent to establish the millennium. 

The Thomists disputed the Immaculate Conception. 
^ The Tunkers, established in 1708, baptized by immer- 
sion ; they observed Saturday as the Sabbath and recom- 
mended celibacy. 

The Unitarians differ in many respects from the 
Christian dogma. 

The Uhiversa/ists, established in 1750, also reject many 
Christian doctrines. 

The Valentinians do not believe in the Trinity. 

We have enumerated here sixty-one different sects which 
differ from the fundamental doctrines of the Christian 
Church, not in minor details, like the two and a half 
hundred other sects, but in many of the vital principles. 
We find among these denominations so many strange 
phenomena, so many confused ideas, that we can only be 
astonished that men endowed with reason can be led to 
imagine and believe such things. 

Quite recently, in 1882, a new sect has been established 
which belongs in this last category. It is important that we 
should enter a little more particularly into their history, 
in order to show to what excesses and to what follies 
Christianity, with its blind belief, can lead men. This 
new sect originated in Michigan, and, like the Oneida 
Colony m the State of New York they, have assumed the 

6 



82 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

name of Perfectionists. At their head is a former 
Methodist minister, Schweinfurth, and a Mrs. Beekman, 
who is considered by the followers to be the personifica- 
tion of the godhead. Schweinfurth declares the creed 
of the sect in the following words : " Mrs, Dora Beekman 
is Christ, and if you do not believe this you will be lost." 
The followers declare that the divinity has taken possession 
of Mrs. Beekman, that she has become one with God, and 
that when she speaks she speaks with the voice of God. 
The woman herself pretends to possess divine qualities, 
that she is called to preach the Word, and that she must 
fulfil her mission whether she is willing or not. Her 
followers announce her to be the Savior. At a recent meet- 
ing of the sect, one man spoke of Mrs. Beekman as " the 
Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world." 
Another said of her: " She is the light which lightens 
the world." Others called her: "God the Lord." 
Another states that he had had great trouble to find the 
Holy Ghost; he had prayed day and night, and yet not 
found him ; he had addressed himself without success to 
Moody and other preachers. At last the Lord had taken 
him to Chicago, where he had met Mrs. Beekman, in 
whom he had recognized at once the Savior, and now he 
was happy. The meetings of these people are opened 
with singing; then follows a sermon by Mrs. Beekman, or 
by Schweinfurth, who tries to prove that Mrs. Beekman is 
God or Christ. When a convert declares that he believes 
this, he is perfect, and can do no wrong and can commit 
no sin. They maintain that they are God's people, that 
they are immortal, and are the sons and daughters of God. 
These new sectarians have caused great misery in families. 
That they can exist in these days is the consequence of 



CHRISTIANITY. 8 

the Christian dogma and the belief in miracles; and it is 
a proof how easily men can be led to folly, if it only 
assumes to contain something miraculous. On the con- 

tr ? r > y ;r ny , Pe0ple refuSet ° beIi <^ewhat is reasonable, 
whilst they always are ready to accept what is unreasonable 
It is remarkable that the great Protestant denominations 
have m the course of centuries, become more and more 
divided into smaller sects. The Baptists, originally estab- 
hshed in iy by Roger Williams, have now been divided 
mto the fo lowing sects: the Particular Baptists, General 
Baptists, New Connection General Baptists, Old School 
Baptists, Free Will Baptists, the Six Princ p,e BaptSs 
die Seventh Day Baptists, the River Brethren, and he 
Free Christian Baptists. The Methodist Church, founded 
n 1720 by John Wesley, has since then been divided in 
the following sects: the Methodist Episcopal Church, 

Prote , ?ri th u° dlSt EpiSC ° pal Church > the M «hodis 
Protestant Church, the Bible Christians, the Wesleyan 
Methodists the New Connection Wes.ey'an Method" 
the Primitive Methodists, the United Methodist Free 
Church, the Free Methodists, the Reformed Methodists, 
S Af "? a " Al " encan Episcopal Church of Zion, the 

Wh V tfieM C M f; dlStS ' ^ ChriStkn Connection, the 
Wei M *f e ' h0dlsts > Ae Huntingdon Methodists the 
Wish Methodists, and the Church Methodists. The 
Presbyterian Church is divided into the following sects: 
the Presbyterian Church of the United States, the Southern 
Presbyterian Church of the United States, the Scotch 

S/cH na \ Ch rr' the ^ ChUrCh ' the ^ited Presby" 
tenan Church, the United Presbyterian Church of North 
America, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North 
America, the United Presbyterians, the Synod of United 



84 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Original Seceders, the United Reformed Synod of New- 
York, the Southern United Reformed Synod, the United 
Synod of North America, the Eastern United Presbyterian 
Synod, the Seceded Presbyterians, the United Reformed 
Synod of the South, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 
and the United Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the 
Southern States. 

Each of these sects believes that its doctrine is the only 
true one. I ask again, Can the truth be found where there 
is so much dissent and so much difference of opinion ? 



Rites and. Ceremonies 

In the same manner as the different Christian sects vary 
from each other in the dogmas of the Church, they are 
divided also in their opinions of the ceremonies of bap- 
tism and the communion. As regards the former, a large 
portion of the sects is in favor of baptizing the new-born 
infant, whilst others maintain that baptism should only be 
conferred on adults ; and it is further a question of dispute 
whether a person who has been once baptized ought to be 
baptized again when he secedes from one religious com- 
munity to another. Since the third century it has been the 
usage in the Church to re-admit a heretic without again 
baptizing him ; and the Catholic Church of to-day de- 
crees that all those who have been baptized in the name 
of the Trinity must not be baptized again. The Protestant 
Church also holds that baptism confers forgiveness of 
sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and can, therefore, 
not be repeated in the name of the Trinity. Accord- 
ing to Luther, baptism, besides the forgiveness of sin, ef- 
fects regeneration and the re-establishment of free-will. 






CHRISTIANITY. 85 

The Reformed Church looks upon it more as a symbol and 
a pledge that God will grant regeneration and justification 
to those who believe. As both Churches considered bap- 
tism necessary for salvation, they are obliged to retain in- 
fant baptism, which, since Augustine, has come into gen- 
eral use. As there exists no direct command from Jesus 
or the Apostles in favor of infant baptism, and as the 
children are not capable of belief, which is supposed to 
exist at the ceremony of baptism, the Anabaptists reject 
infant baptism altogether, and instituted a repetition of 
baptism of adults. Quakers and Baptists do not baptize 
infants, and the latter have particularly stringent rules re- 
garding this act. One of the principle Baptist journals, 
some time ago, spoke as follows : " The real baptism is 
not the immersion by an unauthorized minister, nor the 
immersion by a Presbyterian or a Methodist minister, 
even if they themselves have been immersed ; nor is it ef- 
fective if performed by every Baptist minister. Christian 
baptism is immersion by a Baptist minister, who himself 
has been correctly immersed by another correctly im- 
mersed minister." Of how much importance the Baptists 
regard the correct immersion $vill be shown by the follow- 
ing : In January, 1882, two colored men in St. Louis, 
who had been condemned to death for murder, were to 
be baptized previous to their execution, to cleanse them 
:rom their sins. The baptism was performed in prison by 
one minister and one deacon, two bath-tubs filled with 
water being placed in the cell. The two condemned men 
knelt down in the tubs, and the. deacon bent their heads 
backward into the water until their bodies were com- 
pletely immersed, upon which the minister pronounced 
the baptismal formula. When the ceremony was over and 



86 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

the two men, according to the doctrine of their church, 
had been delivered from their sins, they were dressed and 
led to execution. 

Baptism, as an initiation to higher knowledge, is of 
ancient Egyptian origin, and was brought from Egypt to 
the Semitics and Greeks, among whom it was in use as a 
necessary requirement for purification. It was only, as is 
the case to-day with the Baptists, performed upon adults. 
Jesus himself was baptized when he had reached manhood, 
and he commanded his disciples to instruct, before bap- 
tism, those who wished to be baptized — by which infant 
baptism is positively excluded. Yet the majority of the 
Christian denominations uphold infant baptism to this 
day. 

Christianity teaches that men have come sinful into the 
world, and the ceremony of baptizing requires that the per- 
son to be baptized shall be asked if he renounces the 
devil and all his works, which question has to be answered 
by the sponsors. Irrespective of the circumstance that the 
new-born child in this question is considered to be cor- 
rupt and impure, how can the sponsors conscientiously pro- 
mise that the new-born child, which is not able to think for 
itself, will for all time belong to the creed according to which 
the baptism is performed ? Is it possible to accept as correct 
a doctrine which teaches that men enter this world in sin, 
and can only be sanctified and purified by being baptized? 
If this doctrine were true, how does it happen that there 
are so many wicked people ? It can only be supposed that 
the ceremony of baptism has not been effective. And how 
is it with the followers of other creeds who have not been 
baptized, as, for instance, the Israelites? Are they all 
sinful people, op do we not rather find among people who 






CHRISTIANITY. 



37 



do not belong to the Christian faith many good and 
righteous people ? And can it be denied that, among 
those who have been baptized, there are many wicked and 
depraved people ? Contrary to the Christian doctrine 
humanity teaches that every man at his birth carries within 
himself the germs of future development for good or evil, 
and that it depends solely upon his education (an earnest 
warning to parents) and upon his own exertions to free 
himself from his sensual nature, and to gain moral liberty 
and perfect self-dependence. 

A more beautiful idea relating to baptism we find in the 
second chapter of Luke, on the occasion of the presenta- 
tion of Jesus in the temple. Such an act of receiving a 
child into human society and into holiness without 
baptism, and the driving out of devils, would be as sub- 
lime as it is blissful. 

The Christian denominations differ greatly, as has been 
stated before, about the ceremony of the communion. 
Whilst some maintain that the bread and wine are only 
a signification of the body and blood of Jesus, others 
believe that they really eat and drink his flesh and blood. 
Some sects actually drink blood. What a horrible aberra- 
tion of the mind ! Can the thought which is impressed 
upon the Christians, when partaking of the communion 
in the words, " This is the true body and blood of Jesus 
Christ" — can this thought awaken a comfortable and 
blissful sentiment? Will not a thinking man turn away with 
disgust from the idea of eating and drinking the flesh and 
blood of a dead fellow-creature ? 

If Jesus said at the Last Supper to his disciples, " This 
is my body which is given to you, and this is my blood 
which is shed for you," did he not mean by this that he 



88 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

died as a sacrifice in his endeavor to enlighten the world, 
and that they should think cf him? But the Christian 
Church delights in explaining the sayings of Jesus accord- 
ing to its own ideas ; and whilst, even during the cere- 
mony, they consider him a man of flesh and blood, they 
make a God of him immediately afterwards. 

A brotherly feast, a feast of love, should be held accord- 
ing to the will of Jesus. Such a one, without dogmas and 
the forgiveness of sin, would bring blessings to the fol- 
lowers of all creeds and denominations. 



Miracles. 



Christianity is based upon the belief in so-called miracles 
— that is to say, phenomena directly opposed to the laws 
of nature. This need not astonish us, for in the days 
when Christianity first appeared the belief in miracles and 
supernatural things was general, and we find such miracles 
not only in Christianity but in other ancient creeds. 
They were brought into harmony with the religious ideas 
of the time and of the people, and were deposited as 
dogmas in their religious traditions. Even our own times 
offer an example of this. It is alleged that on September 
22, 1827, the founder of Mormonism discovered the 
golden tablets containing the Book of Mormon. There 
are no miracles, there never have been miracles, and there 
never can be miracles. The word miracle means an event 
which necessitates the suspension of the eternal law of 
nature, a direct interference of God with the order of the 
Universe; and the Christian Church pretends to see in the 
miracles ascribed to Jesus, and reported in the New 
Testament, a decided proof of his divinity. Protestant- 



CHRISTIANITY. 89 

ism believes in miracles, but it believes that they have 
ceased to take place ; whilst the Catholic Church main- 
tains that miracles have been performed, and are being 
performed continually within its fold, in reply to prayers 
and by virtue of the relics of saints. We find some 
instances of such alleged miracles in the appearances which 
are said to have taken place in Lourdes and Marpingen, 
also in the statue of the Virgin Mary in the Francescan 
Church of Athlone, in Ireland, which, after a priest had 
taken off the veil in which it was enveloped, is said to 
have opened and moved its eyes, and spread its hands and 
arms blessingly over the congregation ; whilst, from the 
dome of the ceiling, a bright light and innumerable stars 
appeared. Another of these alleged miracles took place 
in a church at Knock, in Ireland, where, the sick were 
healed by eating the plaster off the wall of the church. 

Whoever believes in wonders, and that the eternal laws 
of nature can be suspended for a certain purpose, proves 
that he does not believe in the eternity of these laws of 
nature, and thinks that everything in this world depends 
upon chance and arbitrary will. That this is not so is 
proved by the system of unchanged order which exists 
throughout the universe. Whoever believes that God will 
make use of a miracle to gain a certain end acknowledges 
that God's creation is very imperfect. It would give a 
very small idea of the greatness of God if we were to 
assume that He was compelled, for certain purposes, to 
change His laws of the universe. 

We can imagine that a man may do something to correct 
a mistake, to accomplish a purpose contrary to the 
ordinary course of events; but such cannot be the 
case with God, who is infallible and unchangeable. 



90 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

"Everything takes its natural course in this world," says 
a well-known author of our times. "The experience of 
more than a thousand years has impressed upon the 
scientist conviction of the unchangeable laws of nature, 
with constantly increasing and irrefutable certainty. Not 
the slightest doubt can arise in his mind about this great 
truth ; step by step science has gained every position 
which the belief in miracles maintained. " There is noth- 
ing miiaculous; everything has taken place, and takes 
place, in a natural manner, which is determined by the 
laws of nature. The only miracle which exists is nature 
itself; the whole creation with all its heavenly bodies, its 
origin and increase, with its life and death. It is an 
eternal wonder, which we, with our limited earthly senses, 
cannot conceive. Miracles, in the sense of the Church, 
are impossible, for they presuppose a suspension of the 
laws of nature, an interruption in the order of the universe, 
which would bring everything into incalculable confusion 
— which would reduce the world to chaos. The return 
of the seasons, the millions of worlds and their regular 
course, the fructification of the earth, the birth of men — 
all these are wonders of nature which do not exist by 
themselves, but which have been subjected to positive laws 
by the Supreme Being, who has called them into life. 
That the grass of the meadow becomes wool on the bac^. 
of the sheep, hair upon the back of the stag and the cow, 
feathers upon the fowls and geese — in all this we discover 
nothing miraculous. Yet they are real wonders, which 
differ from those related in the Bible in so far that we see 
them as accomplished facts, whilst the others are unnatural 
and are only based upon belief. We pass daily by innu- 
merable wonders, like that of the grass of the meadow 



CHRISTIANITY. 



9i 



and its different effects, without noticing them, just be- 
cause they are natural truths. 

The Christian Church rejects what it calls natural re- 
ligion, — namely, the belief in one eternal God, and main- 
tains that the so-called revealed religion — the belief in 
the unnatural and in miracles — is indispensable to the 
sanctification and the happiness of man. For this pur- 
pose she uses the alleged miracles, knowing that the ma- 
jority of men are more accessible to what is mysterious 
and miraculous than to that which is natural and reason- 
able. They will find believers as long as me 1 will not 
think for tnc:mselves, but will continue to accept blindly 
what has been said by other men hundreds of years ago. 

Yet even to-day men will cling to the most unreasonable 
and unnatural doctrines of the Church, and call them 
miracles and believe in them, whilst they do not recog- 
nize much that is wonderful in nature, which is incompre- 
hensible to them. They turn haughtily away from it and 
declare it a superstition. It is a curious phenomenon that 
men care less for God than for the saints and the devil. 

The believing masses are longing, and always have 
longed, for miracles, and none have been announced which 
have not at once found believers. If the Biblehad said 
an elephant had laid an egg and hatched it, and that the 
Holy Spirit had proceeded from it, the I elieving Chris- 
tians would have accepted it, because it stands in the 
Bible. The number of those poor in spirit, who are 
always ready to believe everything which appears as a 
miracle, is still terribly large. Rationalists, as opposed to 
the orthodox, are those priests of the Church who, whilst 
acknowledging the unreasonableness of miracles, preach 
about them to the people ; yet they do not torment them- 



92 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

selves with all kinds of sophistry to explain and define that 
which is against reason, and to make it thus acceptable to 
their hearers. Among priests who have been active in 
such a manner there have been many honorable and excel- 
lent men ; for instance, Schleiermacher, Herder and 
Neander, who were far removed from any intention of 
deceit. But however much they tried, they did not suc- 
ceed in their endeavor, because they had not the courage 
to use their intellect, which at all times recognizes truth, 
and which would have told them that what is unnatural 
is impossible. They consulted the arguments and sophistry 
of their intellect in regard to the truth which their reason 
announced to them. Daily experience teaches us that if 
intellect alone is made the judge, it will lead to errors and 
false results. 

The youngest school-boy is taught to consider those 
miracles which abound in the history of ancient nations 
as fables, but the miracles related in the Bible he must ac- 
cept as facts and beli ve in them. When he reads of the 
sacrifice of Tphigenia, he is told that it is a fable, but the 
intended sacrifice of Isaac he is told is a truth. If he 
reads of Titans who attempted to storm the heavens, he 
is told it is mythology, and that Titans have never existed ; 
but giants, as reported in IV. Moses xiii. 33, and V. 
Moses ii. 11 and iii. 13, he is told have existed, and even 
men, who are believed to have existed, attempted to build 
a tower which was to reach into heaven, in which they 
did not succeed because God descended from heaven and 
prevented them. If a school-boy were told that Lycurgus, 
Numa, Buddha, Mohammed, or any other law -giver had 
received his laws from heaven, he would not believe it; 
but he believes, and is compelled to believe^hat Moses 



CHRISTIANITY. 93 

v 

received his laws, which God himself ha*d written on two 
tablets of stone, from God's own hand. 

We have already examined the miracles related in the 
Old Testament in the chapter entitled "The Bible," and 
it is scarcely necessary here to mention more of them. 
The miracles of the New Testament — the miracles which 
Jesus is said to have performed — are worthy imitations of 
the miraculous stories told in the Old Testament about 
Moses and the prophets Elijah and Elisha. These have 
been the models of the miracles ascribed to Jesus. Moses 
feeds the people in a miraculous manner with manna ; in 
a similar way Jesus feeds five thousand people with a few 
loaves. The Red Sea yielded to the commands of Moses, 
and Jesus calmed the storm on the lake. Moses was trans* 
figured on Mount Sinai, Jesus upon a mountain in Pales- 
tine. Moses disappears, nobody knows his grave, and 
legend makes him ascend into heaven ; Jesus also ascended 
into heaven. Elijah and Elisha healed the sick, as also 
did Jesus. Elisha changed bad water into good, and 
Jesus changed water into wine. Elijah brings a dead 
child to life again as Jesus did the youth of Nain. The 
healing of the sick by Jesus was no miracle, according to 
the ideas of his time, for it was a popular belief that 
sickness was caused by evil spirits which entered into 
men. It was thought possible to expel these evil spirits 
and to heal the sick by pronouncing passages of sacred 
writing, before which the evil spirit would flee and 
leave the sick. Jesus himself confessed that different 
spirits had to be expelled by different means. When the 
disciples (Matthew xvii. 21) could not expel a demon, he 
taught them that this kind of evil spirit could only be 
expelled by prayer and fasting. Whilst the miracles of 



94 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

to-day are based - upon actual deceit and fraud, those re- 
lated in the Bible are illusions caused by the defective 
knowledge of the laws of nature, by the belief in un- 
natural and supernatural things, and by superstition. It 
would be wrong to accuse those persons who have related 
these miracles of intentional deception and dishonest 
purposes. On the contrary, we have every reason to 
suppose that they really believed what they wrote. But 
there is no reason why we should believe to-day, after 
many centuries, and in an age of riper knowledge, that 
these miracles have taken place. If we were told to-day 
that a certain thing had taken place which is opposed to 
the laws of nature known to us, we should say it was 
impossible, and simply refuse to believe it. Perhaps we 
find an opportunity to inquire into the origin of this 
reported event, and we find that misunderstanding, ex- 
aggeration, or want of intelligence has disfigured a simple 
fact. In this manner we can explain many of the miracles 
reported to have been performed by Jesus, all the 
more so as many years had gone before anything 
relating to him was written down, during which tradi- 
tion had the opportunity of changing natural events into 
miracles. 

The belief in miracles may agree with doctrines invented 
by men and with the dogmas of the Church, but not with 
reason and true religion ; and the present time is mature 
enough to accept the simple doctrine of the knowledge of 
God, and of truth and virtue, without additions which are 
adverse to the order of nature. 



CHRISTIANITY. 95 

The [Priests. 



The priests, the pillars of the Christian Church, are 
considered by many people as superior beings, and better 
than the rest of mankind. They call themselves 
"Reverend," and consider that they are the mediators 
between God and man. Sinners themselves, they have 
assumed the power to remit the sins of others. 

Without the authority of Jesus, and in imitation of the 
rites of the Old Testament of heathendom, a priesthood 
was gradually established in the Christian communion, 
which assumed the privilege of regulating every circum- 
stance of human life. Humiliation of reason before be- 
lief, the limitation of the development of intellect, the 
propagation of belief in miracles, superstition, fears of the 
punishments of hell, and immovable centralization and 
submission to their will, these were the principal means to 
gain their ends. When Christianity became the religion 
of the State, when Christian priests became priests of the 
State, they suppressed by violent means all resistance 
against the belief which was supported by the State. Then 
began persecution by fire and sword— the instruments of 
the Inquisition. Liberty of opinion was to be exterminated, 
and torture, which hitherto had only been used for the 
slave, was also applied to other classes of the population. 
This is the beginning of the Christian priesthood. Dr. 
E. L. Hagen, a man of great age, who has the experience 
of a long life, published a book a few years ago with the 
title " Guiding Stars," in which he classifies the Christian 
priests as follows : 

" Firstly : Those weak in intellect who, with trouble and 
difficulty, have finished their study of Christian theology 



96 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

exclusively, who consider it a hard task which they had to 
accomplish in order to secure a living, who after having 
passed their examination, throw away their tools and 
consider themselves free from the duty of penetrating 
deeper into science, or of progressing any further from 
the point at which they have arrived. They stand before 
us thoroughly assimilated with their dogmatic prejudices, 
thoroughly satisfied with their spiritual condition, power- 
less and unsympathetic. 

" Secondly : Those who are indolent, who shun spiritual 
exertion in their love for comfort. They close their 
mind against all scientific occupation and pass by the 
steps of intellectual progress with indifference. They are 
satisfied with that which they consider a dogma of the 
Church ; they reject everything which would cause spiritual 
exertion and which might disturb their habitual ease of 
mind. 

"Thirdly: Those who are afraid, who recognize the 
necessity of reform, whose views, hopes and desires are 
directed towards this goal, but who are afraid of their 
superiors, through whose favor they desire to obtain a 
position which will bring them a better income, and who 
are compelled, on account of the care for the comfort of 
their families, to look silently , and indifferently upon the 
present struggle between light and darkness. 

" Fourthly : The Hypocrites, those who in spite of their 
own secret, better convictions, and for reasons which can 
easily be recognized, are in favor of continuing unchanged 
the present state of the Church, and do everything in 
their power to impede the intellectual progress in matters 
of religion. These are the Pharisees of to-day. 

"Fifthly: The Unconscientious. The last mentioned 



CHRISTIANITY. 97 

might be included in this class ; yet I would designate 
here those who are thoroughly aware of their all-important 
vocation,— to enlighten the people, to make them better, 
and to lead them to truth and virtue, and yet carelessly 
neglect their office. They ignore the sacred voice of their 
conscience, and are satisfied if they follow the require- 
ments of the church to which they belong, so that they 
can be attacked neither by their own parishoners nor by 
the Church. A priest belonging to this class, who 
spurned the warning of his conscience, was not ashamed 
to say : 'I teach what my superiors have commanded me 
to teach, and if the people are led astray or neglected 
they are responsible for it, not I j and I say to the Church, 
if it should ever disapprove of my conduct, as the High 
Priest said to Judas : « What is that to us? See thou 
to it.'" 

"Lastly: Those who are altogether incurable, who 
have taken for their guidance the words of Augustine 
'Credo, quia absurdum est,'— that is to say, 1 believe 
because it is absurd ; those who, full of their sacerdotal 
dogmatism, revile everything that is opposed to it, who 
look upon reason as an instrument of the devil, whose 
hearts are so dried up, so barren, so shriveled, that every 
attempt to elevate them is futile." 

Whoever has had experience of the world, and who has 
had the opportunity of observing carefully the position 
which priests occupy, must acknowledge that the above 
description contains much that is true ; but there is still 
another class of priests which, in order to be just, must 
not be overlooked. It consists of those honest men 
among Christian priests who honestly believe what they 
teach. It would be a great mistake, and a great wrong, 



98 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

to suppose that all priests who still cling to the old dogmas 
are hypocrites. No : there are among them many 
honorable, faithful men, who are afraid to reflect only 
because they think it a sin to doubt and to shake the foun- 
dations of the old doctrine. We cannot refuse our respect 
for such men, even if we are opposed to their opinions ; 
for every honest conviction may claim the respect of the 
most decided opponent. In the course of my long life I 
have had frequent opportunities of conversing with Pro- 
testant and Catholic priests. Among them were men 
belonging to every denomination, some who belong to the 
most Orthodox class, and I have found among them many 
honorable, exceLent men. But they were not good and 
honorable because they believed in the Christian faith, 
not because they belonged to a certain church or denomi- 
nation, but because they felt and thought and acted in a 
humane spirit. The great feature of their ct nduct was 
not Christianity, but pure, noble humanity, because 
genuine humanity prevailed above Christianity ; they were 
not first Christians and then men, but first men and then 
Christians. 

Without considering this last-named class, which forms 
an exception, let us consider for a moment the Christian 
priesthood in its general actions. We are best able to 
judge the spirit which rules over them, if we take priests 
of different denominations and let them speak for them- 
selves. For this purpose we will quote a few of their 
opinions. 

A Catholic priest in Allgau, in Bavaria, expressed him- 
self a few years ago, in a sermon, as follows : " We priests 
stand as high above the governments, emperors, kings, 
and princes of this world as the heavens are above the 






CHRISTIANITY. 99 

earth. Kings and princes are as inferior to us priests as 
lead is to the finest and purest gold. Angels and arch- 
angels are far beneath the priests, for we, as representa- 
tives of God, can remit sins, which angels and arcnangels 
never could do. We stand above the mother of God, for 
she has borne Christ only once; but we priests create him 
every day. Yea, we priests stand, as it were, above God, 
for He is at our service at all times and in all places, and 
must decend from heaven at our command when we con- 
secrate mass. God indeed has created the world with 
the words : ' Let there be,' but we priests can create 
God himself with three little words." 

The following is a quotation from a sermon which 
Anton Haering, an assistant priest, preached in the parish 
church of Ebersberg : "When Christ endowed us with 
the power of absolution, he endowed the priesthood with 
a power which is terrible even to hell, which Lucifer him- 
self cannot resist, — a power which reaches into the immeas- 
urable space of eternity, where every earthly power finds 
its limits and its end, — a power which can break fetters 
which, through sin, have been riveted for eternity. Yes, 
indeed, this power of remitting sins makes of the priest a 
second God, for in reality God alone can forgive sins. 
And yet even this is not the height of priestly power. 
Their power reaches higher still. God himself must be 
subservient to the priest. How so ? When the priest 
steps to the altar to perform the sacrifice of the mass, Jesus 
Christ, who sits at the right hand of the Father, rises from 
his throne to decend on earth at the request of the priest. 
Hence, scarcely has a priest begun the consecration, 
when Christ, surrounded by the heavenly host, descends 
from heaven to the earth, on the altar of the sacrifice, and 



ioo THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

at the command of the priest he changes the bread and 
wine into his sacred flesh and blood, and is lifted up and 
carried in the hands of the priest, even of the most sinful 
and unworthy. Indeed such power surpasses that of the 
highest princes of heaven ; yes, the power of the Queen 
of heaven." 

What unfathomable pride ! what madness ! 

In the fifth number of a Protestant Church magazine 
— " Communications of the Evangelical Society of Ger- 
many," for the year 1876 — a sermon is reprinted in which 
the following passage occurs : " The resurrection of Jesus, 
in which his earthly body was transfigured into the incor- 
ruptability and splendor of God, is a security that the 
bodies of his believers, whom he calls his brothers and 
sisters, will be renewed and made like unto him. * * * 
See, the faithful gains from the transfigured body of Jesus, 
from the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood, 
in the word and in the sacrament, in the assumption of 
his god-like nature in the holy spirit, an inner spiritual 
body ; and kis soul gains a spiritual shelter which does 
not leave it in the hour of death and which remains its 
abode. As soon as the earthly shell leaves us, we are 
surrounded by this abode, this heavenly home, which now 
reveals itself and becomes visible. The physical body is 
an essential part of man. Man consists of spirit, soul 
and body, created in the image of God; audit is the 
triumph of Christ's work of redemption that he transforms 
our corruptible abode, our abject, humiliated body, and 
takes it into splendor. Until then the soul, even in 
paradise, is in a state of expectation. The soul longs for 
its body, for the resurrection and transformation of its 
body." 






CHRISTIANITY. lot 

Was the man who preached this himself conscious of 
what he said ? Can such nonsense edify men and lead 
them to good ? And yet such a sermon is reprinted in a 
journal which is published in the interest of propagating 
Christianity. 

The well-known traveler, Gerstaecker, relates in his 
"Australian Travels," vol. «ii. p. 203, that he heard in 
Tanunda a Lutheran clergyman, Kavel, express himself 
in a sermon as follows : " Those who really act according 
to the word of God, but have not the right faith, be they 
ever so good and pleasing to God in their actions, are 
hopelessly lost and will go to the devil. Yes, God will 
hate such men all the more on account of their good 
deeds, because he looks upon this as a kind of hypocrisy, 
because they do not have the right faith. " Is it possible 
to imagine greater nonsense ? 

In January, 1879, a Congress for Home Mission was held 
in Bielefeld, in Westphalia, on which occasion the ques- 
tion of homes for children was discussed. One of the 
clergymen present, Mr. Bramesfeld, referring to the 
employment of wet-nurses, said as follows: " On moral 
principles, nobody should employ a fallen woman ; indeed, 
if a new-born child cannot be sustained by artificial food 
or by its mother, it would be better to sacrifice it as 
Abraham offered to sacrifice Isaac." This preacher, who 
advocated the murder or the starvation of a child, was also 
a Christian priest. 

It is not only Protestant and Catholic priests who 
spread such doctrines, which are against humanity, which 
are unreasonable and hurtful, but the priests of all coun- 
tries and of all creeds and sects. With a few honorable 
exceptions they are all alike, and the difference between 



102 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Protestant and Catholic priests is generally only this, that 
the latter owes obedience to the Pope and derives authority 
from him, whilst among the Protestants every one would 
like to be a pope. Both strive after unconditional and 
unlimited power, not only in religious matters but in 
every condition of human life. Therefore, ye men, if 
you wish to elevate yourselves to that which is common 
to all religions, to the belief in one Supreme Being, if 
you wish to follow the teachings of the great philosopher 
of Nazareth, then you must cease to sing the praise of the 
priests and declare to them that they have no right to 
intrude their dogmas into any of your own affairs. In 
order to obtain a purified view of religion you must, 
above all things, free yourself from priestly influence upon 
your belief and thoughts. Do not underrate the power of 
the priesthood. The history of all centuries gives proof 
of their baneful influence and their fanaticism; and if it 
does not show so glaringly in our times as in former 
centuries, it nevertheless exists still, and has only changed 
its form. If in former times, with the cioss in his up- 
lifted hand, he preached a crusade for the destruction of 
those who believed differently, he obeys to-day the 
maxim-, "Gentle as the dove, but cunning as the 
serpent." The aim is the same, — unlimited power over 
mankind. These gentlemen call themselves pious, and 
they try by outward appearance to present piety ; but the 
really pious are only a few. The truly pious is no hypo- 
crite, but looks up with a cheerful heart to his God; nor 
does he strive after power over others, but is an apostle 
of liberty. 

How this is understood by Christian priests was recently 
proved at a large meeting of Protestant clergymen. On 



CHRISTIANITY. 103 

the 25th of May, 1S83, the Evangelical Luthern Synod 
of Wisconsin held its meeting at Milwaukee. There 
were present delegates from forty-six parishes — eighty-six 
clergymen and twenty-six school teachers. The following 
resolutions were accepted at this meeting: No. 1. "The 
Holy Scriptures, as the revealed word of God, are the 
only and perfectly sufficient source, and the only rule and 
standard of all sound doctrine." No. 2. "For this 
reason the Holy Scriptures should not only be studied 
with heartfelt thanks to God, but should also be accepted 
with reverance as the only truth which is binding on our 
conscience." No. 3. " Those who let their reason be mis- 
tress over the Holy Scriptures must go astray ; they should 
accept them humbly, and with the obedience of faith. ' ' 
At this meeting, which defied all reason, the highest gift 
of God, eighty-six Christian clergymen were present. 
We see that even today Christian priests strive to place 
reason beneathblind faith. Men must not reflect on what 
they read, but accept it blindly, and renounce all reason. 
Can it be wondered that the great masses of the people 
remain ignorant ? Truly, as we read these things, we may 
wonder if we are living in the nineteenth century. 

The following facts will show the spirit of many of the 
Christian priests of to-day. One of the best-known 
preachers of Berlin, Knaak, maintains to-day, four hundred 
years after Copernicus, and three hundred years after 
Galileo, basing his assertions on the Bible, that the earth does 
not revolve around the sun, but the sun around the earth ! 

A professor of theology in Boun tried to prove that 
Balaam's ass had really talked like a man. As a proof of 
his assertion he said that Balaam's ass could have talked 
as well as the serpent in Eden. 



io 4 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Johann Grosse, in his monthly magazine, The Chem?iitz 
Lutheran, published an article under the heading, "The 
Alleged Motion of the Earth," in which the following 
passage occurs: " That the sun moves is not a human 
doctrine, but is reality and truth. But that the earth 
should move is a supposition which has not yet been 
proved, and which arises from hatred of the Bible and of 
God. The astronomer has not yet been born who, by 
means of exact science, has been able to establish this. 
The ungodly world will perish before it sees such a day ; 
for such a proof is as impossible as a falsehood told by 
God. That the earth is immovable, and that the sun 
moves in reality, and not only in appearance, is taught by 
the Holy Spirit in the following words: "Thou hast 
established the earth and it abideth." Psalm cxix. 90. 
" Which (the sun) is as a bridegroom coming out of his 
chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. 
His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit 
unto the ends of it." Psalm xix. 5 and 6. 

If the above gentleman maintains that the earth does not 
revolve around the sun, an English theologian goes even 
further, and maintains that the earth is not a globe, but a 
flat surface, the center of which is London. He also 
declares it to be a falsehood that the distance of the earth 
from the sun is many millions of miles ; he says the sun 
is not more than one hundred English miles above the 
earth. In order that his wisdom might not be lost, the 
learned gentleman has drawn a map illustrating his theory, 
to which he has added an explanatory description to be 
distributed in schools. He has even thought it necessary 
to send a copy of his new map of the world to the Geo- 
graphical Society of Berlin. A man of equally high 



CHRISTIANITY. 105 

scientific culture is the Rev. C. A. Johnson, of Hamilton, 
Canada, who, in 1882, delivered a lecture in Syracuse, 
New York, on the subject: "The Sun Moves." In this 
lecture he expressed himself as follows: "Astronomy 
maintains that the earth moves and the sun stands still ; 
and that is where I differ from astronomy, though I am 
not prepared to say that if it were not for astronomy we 
would know little, if anything, of the heavenly bodies. 
The great luminary that rules the day, I am prepared to 
say, is round, though I can't agree with those who say the 
world is a globe. Astronomers say the sun is 91,000,000* 
miles away. How do they know ? Have they measured 
it ? This talk about the distance between the sun and the 
earth is about as reasonable as the rest of the talk of the 
scientists. How did they pace it off?" 

Here he paused for a reply, but the stillness was unbroken. 

"Now," resumed Mr. Johnson, " these astronomers 
who say the sun has no motion don't know anything more 
about it than I do, and I say it has. If you take a tele- 
scope and look at the dark spots on the sun you will see 
that they move. That shows it has motion. The Bible 
offers satisfactory proof on this question. Let us turn to 
Malachi and see what he says. Don't he speak of the sun 
rising and going down ! How could it, I want to know, 
if it didn't have motion? Look at Joshua! Didn't he 
want the sun to stand still ? If it was not moving, how 
could it stand still ? Perhaps some of my scientific friends 
will answer that. Besides, if the world is round and 
revolves, we must be standing on our heads part of the 

time. I don't remember any such occasion, do you? 

— — — — 1 

*This "reverend" gentleman must have other sources of knowl- 
edge than the <l orator" mentioned before. 



106 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

They tell us the earth is round. I don't believe it. , The 
earth is flat and has four corners, that's what I believe, 
for the Bible says the wind comes from the four corners." 

The Rev. John Jasper, in Richmond, maintains stoutly 
that the earth is flat and square, and that at sunrise the 
sun actually ascends and at sunset it actually descends. 

And such people, who are entirely ignorant of the first 
elements of science, which are familiar to every school- 
boy, are permitted to preach from Christian pulpits ! Can 
we be astonished at the ignorance which prevails in many 
circles as regards religion, morality and knowledge of 
truth? 

How contemptible is that pride which inflates, with 
few exceptions, all Christian priests so much that they 
consider themselves above other men, and call themselves 
" Reverend." Christian humility is on their lips, but 
pride is in their hearts, — pride at which one might feel 
inclined to smile if it did not carry great disadvantage 
and even danger to every generation. And this danger 
really does exist, for, instead of being teachers and 
friends, advisers and comforters of their congregations, 
the priesthood claims to be a privileged class, and strive 
after power to keep mankind in blind obedience to their 
unreasonable dogmas. And how successful they are can 
be seen everywhere, particularly in little towns and 
villages which are remote from the highways of civiliza- 
tion. And men submit patiently to this pride and desire 
for power. There would be some sense in this if the 
Christian priests were men of eminent intellect ; but quite 
the contrary is the case. The majority of the priests of 
all Christian denomi: ations, in fearful ignorance of their 
serious tasks, are only blind followers of old traditions, 



CHRISTIANITY. 107 

without independent knowledge of the true character and 
exigencies of genuine religion. They move in their 
habitual circuit, and many among them do not think it 
even necessary to give their congregations the example of 
a moral life. 

Wherever Christian priests have exercised prevailing 
influences, spiritual pride, selfishness and opposition to 
intellectual development have prevailed. They want 
everything for themselves ; and the Church which they 
represent, or rather, with which they identify themselves, 
does not permit independent thought. Everything be- 
longs to the Church, of which they consider themselves 
the center, and which they uphold as the Alpha and 
Omega of all thought and reflection. 

The priests, no matter to what denomination they 
belong, move everything to maintain themselves in their 
worldly position, and they know well enough that it 
would be in danger by enlightenment and progress. For 
this reason they strive with all their power to impede 
intellectual advancement, and try to gain control of 
schools and other institutions of learning. And because 
they are aware of this they are opposed to non-sectarian 
schools, to progress and liberal education, and to all 
scientific enlightenment. How far they can go in this 
endeavor we find in the story of the Life of Heinec'ke. 
When this philanthropist introduced the instruction of the 
deaf and dumb into Germany to procure for these unfor- 
tunate beings the blessings of speech, it was the Christian 
priests who worked against him, and who declared that it 
was wrong to give speech to these people, who had been, 
by the will of God, born deaf and dumb. The priests 
have always arrogated to themselves the prerogative of 



io8 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

deciding what was right and what was wrong in science, 
what was good or evil in morals, what was orthodox or 
heretical in matters of belief; and they have always tried 
their best to teach men that all are sinners. In this way 
they have maintained themselves in power and made 
helpless slaves of thousands of their fellow-creatures. 

Their influence upon women has been particularly dan- 
gerous. Women do not, as a rule, follow the dictates of 
reason as much as their feelings and their passions. On 
account of this they are more subject to enthusiasm and 
priestcraft than men, who, with a little education, let rea- 
son and judgment determine their conduct. If women 
will recognize this fact, if they will understand the subor- 
dinate position which they occupy towards the priests, 
they will be less inclined to be influenced by them. How 
many happy marriages, in which husband and wife were 
of different denominations, have been made miserable by 
the interference of priests. How much happiness has been 
destroyed by denominational contention which has been 
stirred up by such interference. 

What is the position which priests occupy in political 
life ? In all times and in all ages we find them as the de- 
voted servants of the existing government. To-day, they 
preach and pray for the monarchy or the empire, the king 
or emperor ; and to-morrow, if a revolution should take 
place, and a republican be substituted for the monarchial 
government, they would preach and pray for the republic. 
At all times they have been the servants of existing power. 

Since the origin of Christianity the priests have en- 
couraged and supported fanaticism. They have driven 
mankind to blood and murder in spite of the doctrine of 
Jesus, that men should live together like brethren, and all 



CHRISTIANITY. 109 

this has been done, so they sry, for the greater glory of 
God and of religion. They have stirred up bloody and 
destructive wars and fanatical persecution, in which 
neither old nor young were spared. Who was it that 
caused the wars of the Crusades from the eleventh to the 
thirteenth century? Who stirred up the persecution of the 
Waldenses and the Huguenots in France, and the Al- 
bigenses in Piedmont, where hundreds of thousands of men 
were sacrificed? Who flooded the Netherlands with 
blood? Who caused the Massacre of St, Bartholomew in 
1572, in which forty thousand people, men, women and 
children, were cruelly murdered ? Who carried the cross, 
the symbol of Christianity, before the butcher Pizarro ; 
who blessed 1 is arms when he slew the first inhabitants of 
America like herds of cattle ? Who originated the terri- 
ble institution of the Inquisition, under which hundreds of 
thousands of innocent people were executed with terrible 
torments, all for the sake of Christianity? Who has 
kindled the innumerable stakes at which many great and 
noble men suffered terrible death ? 

All this has been the work of Christian priests who 
called themselves the apostles of the doctrine of Jesus, 
the doctrine of love. These deeds of horror belong to a 
period long gone by, yet they are an eloquent and fearful 
testimony against the Christian priesthood. To-day such 
deeds of horror are no longer possible, yet the spirit 
which called them into life has not died out, and many a 
Calvin is living among us who would send Servetus to the 
stake. Have we not seen quite recently, to the disgrace 
of our century, Jewish persecutions in Berlin, the capital 
of Germany, ^ith the court-preacher Stoecker leading 
the van ? We cannot read the history of the development 



no THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

of Christian priesthood without a feeling of profound 
grief, without accusing the priesthood of great sins against 
the teachings of Jesus and against humanity. 

The Christian priests would like to make Trappist 
monks of all men, would have them renounce all joys of 
this life, and would make them spend their ex stence in 
prayer and penitence only. But the world is not a Trap- 
pist monastery, and God does not wish it to be so. 
Like dissatisfied parents who begrudge their children 
every pleasure, the priests become embittered when they 
see men enjoy the gifts which God has given them for 
their benefit. Under the pretence of keeping holy the 
Sabbath day they take no heed of the fact that man, after 
six days of labor, requires rest and recreation, lest he 
should degenerate and lose every joy of life. They wish 
to drive us into church only on Sunday; they would de- 
prive us of every innocent pleasure, of instructive reading ; 
they would confine us to the Bible, the hymn-book or 
some religious tract. By their temperance laws, which 
really only encourage drunkenness, they wish to deprive 
men of the enjoyment of a glass of wine in the company 
of friends in the open air. They forbid the enjoyment of 
music or of harmless dancing, as if they were immoral 
and ungodly. If these priests would only consider that 
by depriving men of innocent pleasures they do not 
further religious feelings, but on the contrary, work 
against them. If they would only follow the example of 
Jesus at the wedding of Cana, where he was joyful with 
the joyful, and comforted those who were sad. 

As regards the morality of tl e priests themselves, we 
need only consult history to find an answer to our ques- 
tions. Pope Gregory VII., in the eleventh century, 



CHRISTIANITY.. in 

enforced the celibacy of priests, by which crimes of all 
kinds were encouraged. Pope John XXIII. was accused 
before the Council of Constance with having committed 
adultry with his own brother's wife, and of having dis- 
honored more than three hundred nuns. Pope Alexander 
VI. was accused of incontinence, incest and of unnatural 
crimes. So that Adrian VI., who formed an honorable 
exception, was compelled to declare at the Diet of Nurem- 
berg, in 1522, " We know that in this Holy See hideous 
crimes have been committed for some time. We cannot 
wonder that the disease has extended from the head to the 
other parts of the body, from the popes to the prelates." 
It was a general practice in those days for priests to keep 
concubines, for which privilege they had to pay taxes. 
One priest had seventeen illegitimate children in one vil- 
lage, another had seventy concubines. The Bishop of 
Siege had sixty-five illegitimate children. The convents 
were the abode of prostitute women ; infanticide was the 
order of the day ; incest among the priesthood was so 
common that a decree was issued in which priests were 
forbidden from having their mothers or sisters in their 
house. Fortunately, this state of things has improved in 
our days ; but, even now, there are many priests who 
belong to the penitentiary rather than to the church. The 
New York Tribune, a paper which certainly cannot be 
accused of animosity against Christianity and the Church, 
published, in 1857, an article on the increasing immorality 
of the clergy, in which the following passage occurs : "In 
all the bankruptcies of our days there is none greater than 
the moral bankruptcy of the clergy ; one look into the 
daily papers is sufficient to prove the truth of this assertion. 
We read every day of the most atrocious sexual crimes 



112 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

which have been committed by reverend gentlemen. In 
this respect there is no difference among the various 
denominations. If we consider that only the tenth part 
of these outrages come to light, — we need not give any 
reason for this, — we may form an idea of the demoralization 
of our clergy, a demoralization which is not behind that 
of the Middle Ages, not behind that described in the 
Decameron of Boccaccio." As a remedy for this evil, the 
New York Tribune could propose nothing else but the 
advice that no clergyman should be allowed to speak to 
women or girls except in the presence of a third party. 
We do not know whether this was meant seriously or only 
as an expression of bitter scorn. 

A few years later, in 1879, Doctor Bartlett, of Dart- 
mouth College, a man whom nobody will accuse of being 
an enemy of Christianity or the Church, wrote, in a 
monthly magazine, The Congregationalist, that the 
Church ought to be greatly interested in the general 
conduct of the clergy. The following is an extract from 
this article : "It has become possible for reckless clerical 
adventurers to range, almost unhindered, from place to 
place, corrupting and harassing the flock. A student was 
expelled from a western theological seminary for vulgarity, 
obscenity and falsehood; yet he went directly to New 
England, was ordained, and made a pastor. A dissolute 
young pastor in New England was formally turned out of 
the ministry; but within a year he was in charge of a 
church in a distant State. An Englishman came over with 
forged credentials, and almost destroyed a Vermont church 
that employed him; but, as often as exposed, he found new 
pulpits. A Michigan preacher fled from Michigan to escape 
a trial, and was immediately engaged by a Minnesota 



CHRISTIANITY. 113 

church, where his ' low-lived deportment ' got him again 
into trouble. A New England church in a large city- 
engaged a pastor whose private life was so bad that a 
council had refused to settle him." 

This is the testimony of an honorable man, which throws 
a very bad light upon the clergy. There are, as I have 
said above, many honorable and upright men, but there is 
also much chaff among the wheat, and even many poison- 
ous weeds. 

I have in my possession the names of over two hundred 
and fifty clergymen who have committed crimes of every 
kind. This list has been made up from information given 
in newspapers and other publications, and furnishes con- 
vincing as well as ample proof of the depravity among 
ministers of the Christian Church. It embraces the follow- 
ing crimes, which were punished in various ways, ranging 
from a short term of imprisonment in the penitentiary to 
life-long confinement in the State prisons and capital 
punishment, viz: Defraudation, 3; Forgery, 17; Ex- 
tortion, 2: Ill-treatment, 10 ; Swindling, 10; Calumni- 
ation, 1; Embezzlement, 13; Drunkenness, 10 ; Theft, 
20 ; Horse-stealing, 1 ; Highway robbery, 1 ; Church 
robbery, 1 ; Immorality, 33 ; Abandonment of wife and 
children, 7; Seduction, 31; Unchastity, 19; Rape, 5; 
Adultery, 13, Bigamy, 15; Abortion, 3; Incest, 1; 
Suicide, 18 ; Incendiarism, 4; Perjury, 2; Attempt at 
murder, 3 ; Murder 23. 

This is indeed a fearful list, embracing all kinds of 
crimes, and its material — with the exception of a few 
cases — having been collected during the last few years 
only from such sources as accidentally came under my 
notice, it has by no means any claim to completeness ; or ? 



114 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

in other words, it comprises only a part of the crimes com- 
mitted during a limited space of time by clerg- men be- 
longing to different Christian denominations, viz. : Cath- 
olics and Protestants, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, 
Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Lutherans, etc. These 
criminals were clergymen of all grades, up to the highest 
dignitaries of the Church, men who pretended to be ex- 
pounders and teachers of religion and examples of an 
exemplary life for their congregations. 

It should not be said that among the many thousands 
of priests one cannot wonder that there are some black 
sheep. This may apply to society in general, but it is no 
excuse for the crimes committed by the priests. The 
priests, as the teachers of religion, should be pure . They 
may have their weaknesses, like other men; yet there is a 
vast difference between a weakness, which may not harm 
anybody, and a crime, which is directed against the life 
and property of others, and is apt to destroy the happi- 
ness of fellow-creatures. 

And what must be the effect of such examples upon the 
congregations ? Must they not lose all respect for relig- 
ion and become depraved themselves if they see such peo- 
ple in the pulpits? And are not the priests themselves 
hypocrites if they preach to their congregations and pray 
with them with their hearts full of such evil ? What an 
example for the congregations ! Truly, we are perfectly 
justified to ask ourselves the question, If we see such fruit 
on a living tree (the priests), what can we expect from a 
barren tree (the congregation) ? If Christianity is re- 
vealed so little in its ministers, how can it warm the hearts 
of others? 

In the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, Jesus, speaking 






CHRISTIANITY. 115 

of the Pharisees, intends to speak of such hypocritical 
priests who carry such an outward appearance of holiness, 
and yet carry such evil in their hearts. To them 
apply the words of Jesus, "Woe unto you, scribes and 
Pharisees, hypocrites; who appear pious befoie men and 
carry evil in your hearts." 

We will now give a few paragraphs upon the American 
clergy from the Rev. E. E. Guild, who was for many years 
a Protestant clergyman, but who was induced to. abandon 
the profession after he no longer believed it was right for 
him to follow it. We quote his own words : 

" Undoubtedly the priesthood, like all the other learned 
professions, is composed of good and bad men. Doubt- 
less the clergy are no better, nor any worse, than the 
average of men. With them the business of theological 
and religious teaching is a profession and a means of ob- 
taining a livelihood. Before they enter upon their work 
they must, before God and man, make solemn professions 
of faith in a certain creed, to which they are expected to 
adhere and defend during life. On their doing this their 
living depends. They have a pecuniary interest at stake. 
The creed must be maintained, missionary work must be 
done, contributions must be raised, revival excitements 
must be gotten up, converts must be made. They are 
conservative in their tendencies, opposed to all innovation, 
tenacious and bigoted in their opinions, and blind to all 
newly-discovered truth. They can seldom see the word 
truth, because with them it is covered by a dollar. Their 
occupation leads them into the practice of conscious or 
unconscious hypocrisy. They assume a character before 
the people that they by no means maintain in their 
families, or when in company with each other. However 



Ii6 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

grave, sanctimonious and circumspect they may appear in 
public, when assembled in company by themselves they 
are the most jolly of all. They can then crack their jokes, 
tell funny stories, relate smutty anecdotes and indulge in 
low gossips to an extent unequaled by any, except pro- 
fessional libertines. They denounce human selfishness, 
and are of all men the most selfish; declaim against 
avarice, and are mercenary and avaricious ; preach against 
pride, fashion and love of the world, and yet are as proud, 
as servile imitators of fashion, and manifest as much of the 
love of the world as other men. They insist on the neces- 
sity of self-denial, but think themselves entitled to the most 
comfortable places, the best bits, the choicest dainties, the 
lion's share of all the good things of life. They profess to 
be awfully concerned and anxious for the welfare of poor 
sinners, but their sleek, smooth, well-to-do appearance 
gives no indication of excessive anxiety. They claim that 
men, in their natural state, are totally depraved, and yet, 
in this country at least, they profess to believe in a free 
government, founded on the principle that the people have 
a right to govern themselves, — an nconsistency so glaring 
that it makes us suspicious of their sincerity. 

"The art of proselyting they understand to perfection. 
This is an important part of their business. However 
ignorant they may be on all other subjects, this they per- 
fectly well understand. They are in possession of all the 
accumulated experience of a long line of predecessors ex- 
tending through all of the past ages. They know human 
nature well, and how to take advantage of its weaknesses. 
They make their appeals to the superstitious, selfish hopes 
and fears of ignorant men, and have what Archimedes only 
wanted, another world on which to plant their machinery. 



CHRISTIANITY. 117 

It is no wonder that in almost all past time they have 
moved this at their pleasure. They task all their ingenuity 
and eloquence in describing the beauties of a heaven about 
which they know nothing, and the terrors of a hell of 
which they are equally ignorant. The one they promise 
as a reward to all who embrace their doctrines, the other 
they threaten as a punishment to be inflicted on all who 
do not. In this way they may succeed, perhaps, in luring 
some and entrancing others; but no man was ever made 
really any better by being actuated by such selfish con- 
siderations. They condemn human selfishness, and yet 
cultivate and strengthen it by making constant appeals to 
it. They are the greatest beggars in the world. Their 
horseleech cry of give, give, can be heard on the moun- 
tains and in the valleys, in the public streets and in the 
churches. At every public meeting, ostensibly for the 
worship of God, the contribution-box is passed around, and 
the people are entreated, in God's name, to give. The 
people are assured that if they will give, God will restore 
to them four-fold, but not one of them will stand sponsor 
for the fulfillment of the promise or guarantee the refund- 
ing of the gift in case it is not. In a thousand varieties of 
ways vast sums of money are raised by these men, which 
goes to help the warring sects to. vie with each other in 
building costly churches and to support a class of useless 
drones in the human hive. 

''The same envies and jealousies that exist among the 
members of other learned professions exist among them. 
They will unscrupulously resort to measures to supplant 
a brother in an advantageous situation, or in the esteem 
and affections of the people, which lawyers and physicians 
scorn to adopt, and have too great a sense of honor and 



118 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

manhood to think of adopting. If one of their number 
happens to become convinced of the erroneousness of his 
creed, and has independence and moral courage enough 
to avow his honest opinions, the rest will pounce on him 
like a hawk upon a chicken. They will pursue him with 
misrepresentations and slander, hurl at him the epithets of 
" infidelity," "emissary of Satan," enemy of religion ;" 
call him a Judas, a renegade, an apostate ; ostracize him 
from society if they can, — and all to conteract his influ- 
ence in opposition to their sectarian views. On the other 
hand, if one of their profession is accused of any crime, 
the rest of the fraternity will gather around him, form a 
solid phalanx, and shield him from exposure if they can. 
The peculiar position occupied by these men brings them 
into close relation to the female sex. They, knowing that 
women are more susceptible to religious as well as super- 
stitious influence than men, regard them as their right- 
hand weapon of offensive and defensive war. They rely 
mainly on them to further their designs. Women, edu- 
cated to believe that they must depend on men for sup- 
port and protection, will inevitably be inclined to look 
up to the clergy for religious guidance and instruction. 
This brings them into frequent and familiar intimacy with 
that class of men. What has been the result ? Not only 
are our sectarian churches made up principally of women 
and children, but the history of the priesthood in all ages 
and countries proves that by no o'her class of professional 
men have so many crimes against female virtue been com- 
mitted as by them. 

" These men claim, too, that by some mysterious super- 
natural process they have experienced such a change of 
nature, such a regeneration of character, such a sanctifica- 



CHRISTIANITY. 119 

tion of mind and heart as fits them to be the mouth-pieces 
of God, and the leaders and instructors of mankind. But 
of what use is it for them to pretend to any superior sanc- 
tity, when all intelligent men know, and all the world 
ought to know, that they ' are men of like passions as others/ 
that they have the same appetites, passions, desires, faults 
and foibles that all men have? The criminal records of 
the country prove that in proportion to their numbers no 
class of educated men furnish a greater number of the in- 
mates of our jails and prisons than the clergy." 

The Christian priests do not spare any means or arti- 
fice to extort money from their congregations and from 
the public, and to fill their churches, — means which any 
respectable man of business would hesitate to employ. In 
1881, a " Religious Business 7 ' was established in Chicago, 
which, according to a circular distributed among the 
clergy, had in stock many hundred nicely-printed ser- 
mons which they offered at the cheap rate of thirty cents 
apiece, pledging themselves that no two clergyman in the 
same neighborhood should receive the same sermons. In 
the same year a religious newspaper in Boston, The 
Church Mirror offered a revolver as a premium for new 
subscribers — real revolvers, real weapons of murder. For 
four subscribers, one revolver ; for nine subscribers, a bet- 
ter kind of revolver ; for fifteen subscribers, the very best 
class, nickle-plated and rose-wood handle — in every re- 
spect a first-class article. Does such a publication, by its 
offer of revolvers, hope to further religious sentiment and 
love for the Church? 

It is revolting to look at the texts chosen by many 
Christian preachers for their sermons to attract the peo- 
ple to their churches. In one number of a Brooklyn 



120 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

newspaper, of November, 1882, the following texts and 
subjects were announced for religious discourse. Dr. Scud- 
der was to preach on "The Demon in the Swine;" Dr. 
Cuyler, on "The Evening Wolves;" Mr. Canfield, on 
"A Search for Saints, ' ' and in the evening by the same min- 
ister, on " The Middle Verse of the Bible and its Bearing 
on Election ;" Mr. Breckenridge, on " Money, Good and 
Bad;" Mr. Parker, on " The Christian's Political Duty;" 
Mr. Morse, on " Temperance and Politics;" Mr. Chad- 
wick, on ' ' Shakespeare, ' ' and so forth. 

In September, 1883, the State Temperance Society of 
Iowa sent a circular to all the Christian preachers in the 
State, requesting them to preach on a certain Sunday for 
the passage of a political law, a prohibition law, and at 
the same time to take up a collection, the proceeds of 
which should go to the campaign fund of a certain politi- 
cal party, and many of the preachers did so ; they did not 
blush at degrading the pulpit by political controversy and 
the house of God to a murderer's den." 

During the same month Dr. Houghton, at New Haven, 
Conn., delivered a sermon on the murder of a certain 
Rose Ambler, openly stamping as the murderer a man who 
had not been tried and convicted of the crime. He did 
so in the following words : " My guess is, and I declare it 
boldly, that Rose Ambler's pretended lover was Rose 
Ambler's murderer. My theory is that Lewis killed this 
girl in his barn, and under cover of the darkness carried 
her to the place where the body was found."- What idea 
of the sacredness of the pulpit has a preacher who uses it 
for the purpose of exciting public feeling against one who 
at most was only suspected of crime, and might be wholly 
innocent ? 



CHRISTIANITY. 121 

Is it not indeed a degradation of the pulpit when it is 
abused by such sensational rubbish, instead of edifying the 
congregations, to speak of all kinds of subjects which have 
nothing to do with religion ? And what can be the effect 
which they have upon the hearers ? We certainly cannot 
be astonished at what frequently happens in America, — 
that the congregation laughs at something which the 
preacher has said, or expresses its approbation by loud ap- 
plause. 

It is equally revolting to see the invitations and the 
promises of warm reception which are held out to attract 
hearers. We find announcements like these in the daily 
newspapers: Everybody welcome; all invited; no collec- 
tion ; sinners come ; splendid singing ; seats free ; ushers 
in attendance ; attentive ushers ; gentlemanly ushers ; 
strangers politely shown to their seats ; strangers shown 
to the best seats, etc., etc. Are these not precisely the 
same means by which a tradesman of the inferior class 
tries to attract customers ? Does it not remind us of the 
ready-made clothes dealers, who almost drag the passer-by 
into their open shops ? And is it not of the greatest in- 
jury to the Church, if the service of God, which ought to 
elevate mankind, is dragged down to the level of ordinary 
business? There are other clergymen who make a special 
business of baptisms and marriages, and advertise them- 
selves for that purpose in the daily newspapers. We 
should not be astonished to see in the papers announce- 
ments like the following : "The cheapest and best bap- 
tisms and marriages in the city are performed by the Rev. 
A. " "Before you go anywhere else for baptisms and 
marriages, call on the Rev. B, who will do it better and 
cheaper than any other minister in the city." Do not the 



122 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

words of Jesus, " My house is a house of prayer, but you 
have made it a den of thieves," apply to such priests? 
The clergy, as a rule, in ordinary life, oppose violently 
lotteries of all kinds; yet they make an exception when it 
is a question of establishing lotteries for the benefit of the 
Church. There were, quite recently, different lotteries in 
Germany for the erection of churches ; and at the fairs 
which are held here, in America, for church purposes, we 
almost invariably find lotteries established to dispose of 
the articles which have not been bought previously. In 
such cases, where the Church gains a direct benefit, the 
old saying, "Circumstances alter cases," comes into ap- 
plication. We are reminded here of the old story of the 
German peasant who complained that he received a dif- 
ferent measure from that which was given to the noble- 
man, and who received the reply, "Yes, that is quite a 
different thing." 

The Mexican priests have invented a very peculiar kind 
of lottery, — a lottery to win souls from purgatory. Sev- 
eral thousand tickets for such a purgatorial lottery are sold, 
at the price of two or more reals. The player writes the 
name of some deceased relative or friend on his ticket, and 
those whose names appear on the tickets which are drawn 
are then transferred from purgatory into paradise. The 
clergy know well enough that by this stupendous super- 
stition a rich revenue is annually brought into their ex- 
chequer. The income of the Mexican clergy amounts 
annually to over twenty million dollars, and good care is 
taken that this magnificent income is not in any very great 
degree lessened. But enough of such vileness. 

Let us now briefly regard the actual faith of the ma- 
jority of the priesthood. Do they really believe what 






CHRISTIANITY. 123 

they preach? In the March number, 1879, of the 
Princeton Review, there is an article on the subject by 
Rev. Phillips Brooks, of Boston, in which the following 
passage occurs: "A large acquaintance with clerical life 
has led me to think that almost any company of clergy- 
men, gathering together and talking freely to each olher, 
will express opinions which would greatly surprise, and, 
at the same time, greatly relieve, the congregations who 
ordinarily listen to those ministers. * * * How many 
men in the ministry to-day believe in the doctrine of 
verbal inspiration which our fathers held? * * * How 
many of us hold that the everlasting punishment of the 
wicked is a clear and certain truth of revelation ? ' ' 
And Mr. Brooks, who is an honorable man, entreats his 
clerical brethren to show themselves in their true and 
honest character before their congregations. But how 
few of them will follow his advice, and how many of 
them will remain hypocrites ! 

But there are honorable and truthful men among the 
Christian priests who will not and cannot dissemble; 
who, when they have arrived at the conclusion tha. their 
conscience is no longer in harmony with the doctrine 
which they preach, cheerfully and publicly declare their 
change of opinion. We have had, of late years, several 
such honorable examples, among others the Rev. George 
Chainey, of Evansville, and the Rev. Mr. Slicer, of the 
Congregational Church in Brooklyn. The latter ex- 
presses himself as follows about the position which some 
of his colleagues occupy towards the Church. Among 
themselves, he says, they agree with him in thinking that 
the life has gone out of the orthodoxy they profess and 
assume to preach ; but they dare not make the admission 



124 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

in public. They therefore content themselves with avoid- 
ing any discussion of the old dogmas in their sermons, 
and carefully abstain from giving expression in the pulpit 
to their honest opinions of them, lest they shock their 
congregations, and so imperil their livelihood. "They 
have their livings to earn and their families to support," 
says Mr Slicer, "but I am young, strong and healthy. 
I can earn my living, and I cannot conceal my con- 
scientious convictions. ' ' 

There are, no doubt, many Christian priests who are 
only wanting in courage to express their convictions in 
such an open and honorable way. How many pulpits 
would be empty if all who no longer believe what they 
preach would make a public declaration of such a fact, 
and, if everybody who now calls himself a Christian, but 
no longer believes in Christian dogmas, and, either set- 
ting them aside altogether or interpreting them after their 
own fashion, would leave the Christian congregation, 
how many churches w r ould be empty? And how much 
nobler and more sublime would Christian life then 
appear ? 

The minister ought to be a pattern of religion , un- 
selfish and useful life, and the leader of the congregation. 
He should be unpretending and modest, noble and useful 
in thoughts and actions. The vocation of a priest is 
sacred and of extreme importance; and if they, who have 
always exercised, and still exercise, a powerful influence 
upon their fellow-creatures, used it for the welfare of 
mankind, and thus fulfilled their task, there would be less 
selfishness, less ungodliness and les^ crime, and more love 
to our fellow-creatures, more virtue, more good and noble 
actions would combine to make the world better and 



CHRISTIANITY. 125 

happier. How much good could these thousands of 
priests have done since Christianity was established ! 
How many blessings could they have conferred upon 
mankind ! How they could have made them better and 
happier, if, instead of teaching unreasonable dogmas 
about the personality of Jesus, they had tried to spread 
his sublime doctrines, and had tried to lead men to God ; 
how much crime and misery they would have prevented ; 
how they would have advanced civilization; and to what 
a high and noble position they would have brought the 
world. 

The number of priests who, from habit or from fear of 
losing their position and their little income, day after 
day, preach dogmas which they themselves have recog- 
nized as erroneous, but who are too weak to follow the 
voice of their conscience, is beyond all calculation. And 
great are the struggles which such a man has to endure. 
He knows and feels that that which he preaches is no 
longer his conviction ; and the thought of what he could 
do, as a priest, if he followed his own conscience, must 
be predominant in him. All exertions to reconcile his 
conscience with that which he publicly announces must 
be futile. The straight road in this case, as in every 
other, is the only right one, which, in spite of all obsta- 
cles, leads alone to contentment and true happiness. 

History teaches us that from the earliest existence of 
Christianity there have been men who, animated by the 
courage of their faith, willingly suffered death at the 
stake for the sake of their convictions. They deserve 
our utmost admiration, inasmuch as these convictions 
had their foundation in religion, the greatest boon man 
possesses. It is true, there is much that is impure and 



126 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

unholy in the Christian priesthood of the present day, 
but it is reasonable to presume that, among the Christian 
clergy of to-day, there may be many who, after earnest 
and sincere reflection, and impelled by the dictates .of 
their conscience and by the strength of their conviction, 
may feel themselves driven in future to preach the sub- 
lime and pure doctrine of love which Jesus has left to 
us, in place of the obsolete dogmas invented by men, 
which they have preached until to-day. 

The times when the stake and martyrdom threatened 
Christianity have gone by, and he who preaches the pure 
doctrine of love is no longer in danger of his life. At 
the most, for a short time, he risks the loss of his income. 
But should such a petty care prevent honorable men from 
declaring openly their innermost convictions? The merit 
of those who gain the victory in such a battle cannot be 
praised too highly, for the large masses of those whom 
dogmatism has driven out of the Church, and who, to- 
gether with Christianity, have rejected religion alto- 
gether, would return. The churches would not be able 
to contain these, if the true words of love were preached 
to them — words which are based on the belief in cne 
Supreme Being, which are the foundation of humanity. 



Th.e Missionaries. 



The system of Christian missions is based upon the 
fallacious idea that the happiness and salvation of mankind 
depend upon the belief in Christian dogmas, and that he 
who is not baptized is doomed to eternal damnation. It 
cannot be denied that the missionaries have done a great 
deal of good in teaching savage nations agriculture and 



CHRISTIANITY. 127 

various trades ; but they have done them no good from a 
religious or moral point of view. If they had preached to 
them the one Supreme Being, the all-loving Father of men, 
they would have caused great blessings ; but they taught 
them a fanatical doctrine of Christianity, an avenging and 
punishing God, who visits the sins of the fathers until the 
third and fourth generation ; and it has been repeatedly 
proved that the so-called conversions have, in many 
cases, only been temporary and of a very superficial 
nature. 

How much misery the Christian missionaries have 
brought into the world, how their actions have been ani- 
mated by desire for power only, how they have caused war 
and bloodshed, has been particularly shown in the history 
of the South Sea Islands, where a race of happy and con- 
tented people dwelt for centuries until the Christian mis- 
sionaries made their appearance. The Sandwich Islands 
have often been held up by the promoters of missions as a 
bright example of the effects of their activity. And what 
has been the result ? The first census of the islands was 
taken about ten years after the American missionaries had 
begun their work, when it was found that the population 
amounted to about one hundred and thirty thousand peo- 
ple. According to the last census this population has 
decreased to about forty thousand souls. The natives 
have become lazy and demoralized, and the white men, 
now that they have squeezed the lemon to the last drop, 
and have made the poor heathens what they are, leave the 
islands which seem to be of no more use to them. In the 
first instance they bought the land at a nominal price, 
and forced the poor natives to work for them at starving 
wages. A hundred years ago these islanders were a happy 



128 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

and contented nation ; and, considering their humble 
wants, they might have been called wealthy. They have 
become poorer and poorer year after year, and it seems as 
if a blast had fallen on these once happy islands. 

There is abundance of impartial evidence given by re- 
liable men, who have observed carefully the effect of 
missionary labors. We will quote here only a few of them. 

Two travelers who recently visited the group of islands 
in the South Pacific Ocean known as the Union Islands 
published the observations of their voyage in a work called 
"The Coral Islands and their Inhabitants," from which 
we take the following extract, relating to the principal 
island, called Cotafu: " The present missionary has been 
living on this island for about ten years, and is not only 
the priest, but has also become the ruler of the island. 
The king and his chiefs are still the nominal governors, 
but they do nothing without his sanction, as he has brought 
them completely under his subjection. The observance of 
the laws is very strictly enforced ; these laws are the works 
of the missionary and contain the same fundamental prin- 
ciples as those which Have been established by the English 
Mission in Raratonga. Among these laws the following 
are most severely enforced : Negligence of church attend- 
ance without a good excuse is severely punished. The use 
of tobacco is not permitted on Sunday ; women are not al- 
lowed to use it at all. Nobody is allowed to leave his hut 
on Sunday without giving a good reason*. Any woman 

*Do we not discover in this injunction the so-called Sunday laws 
which are in practice in England and in the United States, and which 
in the latter have of late been particularly strictly enforced, for the 
purpose of driving the people into the churches by force and of re- 
straining their personal liberty? 



CHRISTIANITY. 129 

appearing in church without a certain kind of bonnet, 
which has been furnished them by English ladies con- 
nected with the Mission, is punished. Musical instru- 
ments have been entirely abolished, as they awaken the 
desire for dancing. No songs, except hymns taught by 
the missionaries, are allowed to be sung; and every 
islander, from the King down to the smallest child, is 
compelled to learn and recite every Sunday some verse 
from the Bible. Any transgression of these laws by the 
islanders is punished, not according to the character, but 
according to number of relapses ; and the punishments 
consist generally in the fine of a certain measure of cotton 
goods. The payment of wages is generally made in this 
material, which in many other respects takes the place of 
money. A first transgression is punished by a fine of five 
measures of calico, of six feet each, the second by a double 
measure, and so forth, no matter whether the fault com- 
mitted has been smoking, thieving, singing or anything 
else." 

The celebrated traveler, Gerstaecker, expresses himself 
as follows about the missionaries : "They have their work 
constantly before their eyes; they are not blind, and know 
well enough how to take very good care of themselves. 
For many years past they have seen the consequences 
which their civilization and Christianity have exercised on 
the heathen races. The Indians have gradually dis- 
appeared from the face of the esrth; great stone churches 
have been built, and their burial places have been filled 
with the bodies of the new Christians. Like a pestilence 
have these new manners and customs raged among them; 
but the land became valuable ; cities and villages arose, 
the Europeans established plantations and became rich; 



130 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

the Indians were driven to work, and either became slaves 
of the white man or were pushed back further and further, 
until they found a quiet place where they could die. 
Meanwhile, the activity of the missionary societies at home 
is incessant. They knit stockings for the puor heathen 
children, they collect money to build churches for them, 
and houses for the pious men, who, at the risk of their 
lives, preach the Gospel in the desert. The poor people 
in Europe deprive themselves of their last penny to help 
'the poor heathen;' thousands and thousands are annu- 
ally carried out of the country to feed the missionaries, 
and to assist them in casting into bonds a nation who, 
until their arrival, had lived happily and in peace. Yet, 
at home, the poor are starving and shivering with cold ; 
the poor children of our northern countries run about 
bare-footed on the ice-covered fields of winter, whilst 
warm stockings are being knitted for heathen children 
living under a tropical sun." 

Another reliable man, who has seen and observed, 
Kotzebue, the great Russian traveller, published similar 
observations many years ago. In a description of a church 
ceremony on the Island of Tahiti, and comparing the 
condition of the islanders before they were converted to 
Christianity with that after the first effects of missionary 
labor became perceptible, he remarks as follows: " After 
the missionaries had succeeded in converting the king of 
a certain district to their faith, the effect can only be com- 
' pared to that produced by a fuse thrown into a cask filled 
wilh gunpowder. A terrible explosion followed. The 
old temples were destroyed and every memory of their 
former worship was annihilated: those who refused to 
accept the new faith were cruelly murdered. The fanatic 



t 
CHRISTIANITY. I3I 

eagerness to make proselytes changed a peaceful, happy 
nation into a race of tigers. Streams of blood were shed, 
whole tribes were extirpated, and many courageously 
suffered martyrdom rather than renounce the creed of 
their forefathers. Only a few escaped into the high 
mountains, where they could not be followed, and lived 
there a miserable and lonely life, but remained faithful to 
their old creed." 

Kotzebue admits that the missionaries, besides all this 
evil, have done some good. They destroyed the old 
heathenish superstitions and abolished many errors; but 
they introduced new ones that were even more harmful. 
They suppressed some vices and encouraged others, such 
as bigotry, hypocrisy and intolerance. They prevented 
the practice of human sacrifice, but more people were 
killed for the sake of the new faith than had ever been 
sacrificed to the ancient gods ; and the terrible persecution, 
which the missionaries had provoked, worked with more 
fearful effect than the most fatal pestilence could have 
done. "I believe," he continues, -that the missionaries 
themselves were at first frightened at the effect of their 
preaching; but they soon eased their conscience, and have 
never since ceased to enforce, in the most rigorous 
manner, the strict observance of their doctrines. The 
consequence of this has been that the former elasticity of 
spirit among these tribes has entirely disappeared, and 
now they are lost in a continual brooding over things of 
which neither the teachers nor the pupils understand any- 
thing.' J 

An American gentleman residing in Bangkok, the 
capital of Siam, wrote quite recently that the Presbyterians 
alone keep more than forty missionaries there. These 



132 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

gentlemen live in comfortable houses surrounded by large 
gardens; they enjoy every luxury of life, keep large boats 
and a large staff of native servants. They are very influ- 
ential with the government, and the gates of the royal 
palace are always open to them. The King is their friend, 
and as they have been in many cases the negotiators of 
the treaties with Christian Rations they are looked upon 
as the real diplomats, and are consulted in every matter 
concerning the state. Their life and labor in that country 
can by no means be considered a sacrifice of comfort. 

The so-called Rice-Christians in China offer another 
illustration of the manner in which heathens are converted 
to Christianity. These people have been converted in 
consideration of a certain quantity of rice which is regularly 
supplied to them. A characteristic anecdote is related by 
Gen. Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia. A missionary 
who believed he had gained an American Indian for the 
true faith, and believed him to be sufficiently prepared to 
receive the sacrament, after he had partaken of the bread 
and the cup asked him whether he did not feel more 
spiritually contented and more satisfied in his innermost 
heart. The Indian replied that it tasted very good, 
1 'but," he added, with a smile, " brandy tastes better." 

Many and just comments have been made in Protest- 
ant circles about the great sums of money which the 
Catholic population of all countries have contributed 
towards the Peter's Pence. This money is principally 
given by poor people who have earned a few pennies by 
hard labor, and have deprived themselves of the neces- 
saries of life to feed the Prince of the Church, whom they 
consider their master, and who is living in Rome in 
luxury and splendor. If they have no Pope and no 



CHRISTIANITY. I33 

Peter's Pence in the Protestant Church, the members of 
that community are taxed to an amount of money com- 
pared to which the Peter's Pence appear as a mere trifle. 
These sums are used entirely for missionary purposes, that 
i» to say, to support, in every part of the world, a large 
number of men whose purpose it is "to convert the 
heathen," whilst, in almost every instance, they have de- 
stroyed the peace and happiness of these heathens. 

In the United States alone there are nine large Prot- 
estant missionary societies, which support more than four 
thousand missionaries, among whom there are three hun- 
dred and fifty women, at an annual cost of over four 
million dollars. If we take into consideration the money 
spent in England, France, Germany and other European 
countries, the sum of ten million dollars annually spent 
for missionary purposes will not prove to be exaggerated. 
Would this large sum of money not be spent more use- 
fully if it were devoted to elevating the moral condition 
of the lower classes of America and Europe? 

But not only among the heathens in other countries 
have Christian fanatics tried to make converts to their 
faith. American missionaries, have endeavored to make 
proselytes among the different Protestant denominations 
in Europe. The Methodists and Baptists have been par- 
ticularly active in this respect ■ and quite lately seventy 
thousand dollars have been voted by these two denomi- 
nations for missionary purposes in Germany, Sweden, 
Norway and Denmark— new proof of the sad fact that 
Christianity is divided and wanting in union and harmony. 

Only quite recently, in June, 1882, a violent dispute 
arose between two of the principal missionary societies 
of New York about the fields of action which were to be 



i 3 4 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

allotted to each society. The American Board of Foreign 
Missions had always considered Turkey as their special 
domain, whilst the Baptist Mission considered Burmah as 
their particular province. There had never been any 
legal settlement upon this point, but there was a mutual 
understanding that neither of these missionary societies 
should interfere with the work of the other. A little 
while ago the Amenians of Turkey expressed a wish to 
be baptized by immersion. The Baptists were ready to 
meet this desire, and referred to the Bible as an authority 
that their manner of baptism was the only correct one, a 
statement which was violently disputed by the other sect. 
Thus we see that the quarrels of the different denomina- 
nations are carried into the most distant countries. Can 
the dignity and respect of Christianity and religion be 
furthered by such dissensions? 

We find some further information about missionary 
matters in the Missionary Review. It is an independent 
publication, edited by a former missionary of the name 
of Wilder. It criticizes freely the missions and the mis- 
sionaries of all lands. Just now its special criticism is 
against the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 
which, comparing it to a vessel, it intimates is covered 
with "an enormous growth of something worse than bar- 
nacles." It says that the officers of some of the boards 
exercise irresponsible and damaging power, and it suggests 
that both boards and officers need to be ' ' hauled on the 
dry dock and scraped." 

Another thoroughly reliable source of information, 
which will enable us to judge of the effect of missionary 
labors, is found in a recently-published volume, by the 
English missionary, James Gilmour, under the title, 



CHRISTIANITY. 135 

"Among the Mongols." Mr. Gilmour was stationed in 
Pekin, and was an active worker for more than twelve 
years throughout China and Mongolia. He is one of the 
few Europeans who has become thoroughly familiar with 
the languages of the countries in which he resided, and 
was thus enabled, not only through his zeal but through 
his knowledge of the languages, to gain the desired end. 
And what does this honorable and truthful man say about 
the result? "So far, I have not seen a single convert 
among the Mongolians." This candid confession shows 
that Mr. Gilmour did not feel inclined to deceive either 
himself or others. In another place he says: "The 
great interest which many of them showed when I 
preached the Gospel to them was chiefly caused by the 
circumstance that I gave them medical assistance when 
they were sick." They sought bodily cures rather than 
spiritual light and comfort. 

In a separate chapter Mr. Gilmour speaks of the diffi- 
culties which he encountered in his endeavors to convert 
the Mongols. They are mostly Buddhists and have often 
puzzled him with doubts and questions about their con- 
version to Christianity. He gives the following instance : 
"Admitting, for argument's sake, the Christian doctrine 
that we can recognize and expect to meet such of our 
friends as go to heaven, he (the Mongol) asks, ' How 
about those whom we do not meet there, and who are 
gone to the place of torment? Knowing that they are 
suffering, can we be happy? And if God knows every- 
thing, and knows before He has created them that such 
and such men will be sinners, and not be saved, but go to 
hell, why, knowing all this, does He, who is goodness 
and love, make such men at all ? And why did not God, 



156 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

who made the world and rules it, and knows all and can 
do all, why did not he prevent the serpent from deceiving 
our first parents, and keep sin from entering the world at 
all?' The Mongols are also troubled about the idea of 
the Trinity. They want to know what has been the fate 
of innumerable heathens who have died without ever hear- 
ing of Christ. They are shocked at the notion of an 
eternal hell, from which escape is forever impossible. 
And they ask, ' How do we know all that our Bible tells 
us of a future state to be true. Has any one among us 
died, gone to the world to come, seen these things, and 
come back to life to report on them? ' " 

We see that the Mongols, these heathens, do not be- 
lieve blindly, but reflect ; and the same doubts and hesi- 
tation w T hich arise in the hearts of hundreds of thousands 
of men, who apparently believe in Christianity, spring up 
in the minds of these distant people. 

Not only Christianity sends its missionaries into the 
world, but Mohammedanism does the same, and with much 
greater success. The Christian missionaries, in the year 
1880, claimed to have converted twenty thousand Chinese, 
whilst the Mohammedans claimed to have gained over 
one hundred thousand to their faith. The Mohamme- 
dans, whose purpose it is to replace the worship of idols 
and of polytheism by the belief in one Supreme Being, 
gained their first success in countries where Christians had 
not been able to make converts, or had soon lost the few 
which they had made. The African tribes, who cannot 
understand the complicated doctrine and miracles of 
Christianity, prefer the simple teachings of the Koran, 
and, for this reast>n, Mohammedanism is constantly gaining 
ground in parts of Asia and Africa, where Christianity 



CHRISTIANITY. 137 

has never been able to get a foothold. India aloi.e con- 
tains more than sixty million Mohammedans against two 
million Christians, which proves that the Indians, outside 
of the Hindoo creed, prefer the simple doctrine of Mo- 
hammed to the incomprehensible miracles of Christi- 
anity; and this again explains the cause of the wide- 
spread and determined antagonism to Christian publi- 
cations which prevails in India. In Lucknow and Cawn- 
pore there are forty-five publishing houses, which are 
almost entirely confined to the issuing of anti-Christian 
writings. One of these houses received lately a gift 
of four thousand dollars for the purpose of publish- 
ing and distributing writings in favor of the Moham- 
medan creed, whilst another house received from a rich 
Hindoo a considerable sum to be spent in the issuing 
and distributing of tracts relating to the Hindoo religion. 
And what are the means which Christian missionaries in 
India employ to gain proselytes? They travel from place 
to place, and, by means of a magic lantern, throw pic- 
tures upon a white cloth representing incidents of biblical 
history. They accompany this show with spiritual songs, 
supported by an organ which is carried about on a wagon 
drawn by oxen. 

And what has been the result of many years of mission- 
ary labor among the wild nations who believe in evil 
spirits and sorcery ? In the districts adjacent to the Congo 
river, where missionaries have been active for many years, 
the natives, to this day, are given up to the wildest belief 
in witches and sorcery. Every sickness, every death or 
other misfortune, is ascribed to witches. A magician is 
called upon to tell who has performed the sorcery ; the un- 
fortunate person who is supposed to be guilty is subjected 



138 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

to the most cruel torments, and if the accusation is as- 
sumed to have been proved, the victim is cruelly killed. 

It is a curious fact that many of the rich English mer- 
chants, who contribute large sums for missionary purposes, 
manufacture or deal in idols intended for the heathen 
nations, and do a very lucrative business with them. 

In recent years another and mo^t objectionable means 
has been discovered for Christianizing the world, — 
namely, the so-called Salvation Armies, which have fol- 
lowers of both sexes, and are organized under military dis- 
cipline. They not. only hold public meetings, but they 
also march with music, singing and praying through the 
streets where they are exposed to the insults and the 
scoffing of the rabble. Every seriously-thinking man must 
come to the conclusion that by such sensational and offen- 
sive behavior every denomination must be injured, and 
religion itself be exposed to contempt and ridicule. 
These so-called Salvation Armies are, in truth, armies of 
ungodliness, and may be compared to the community of 
Flagellants. Like every kind of fanaticism, it has been 
the cause of incalculable mischief, and many a poor weak- 
minded creature, who has followed their irrational teach- 
ings, has ended a miserable life in a mad -house. The 
founder and leader of these fanatics is a certain Booth, 
General Booth as he calls himself, who appoints his cap- 
tains and officers according to his own liking, and these 
soldiers are distinguished by a certain kind of uniform. 
Sensationalism, hypocrisy and a disgusting noisy demeanor 
are the characteristi :s of this movement. Silent prayer is 
positively forbidden ; the members of the Salvation 
Armies, like the Pharisees, say their prayers in public 
places, and at the corners of the streets. Booth says to 






CHRISTIANITY. 139 

his followers: "The ordinary Church service is abso- 
lutely useless to awaken souls ; a strictly military despotism 
is the only means to place man in p^ace and harmony 
with God." Indeed, a blissful principle for converting 
the world ! It is unnecessary to try to prove what a de- 
moralizing effect it must have, when old people, married 
men and women, and even children, publicly denounce 
their own transgressions against morality and decency. 
And what is the material of which these Salvation Armies 
are composed? A certain Mylius, who, after having 
served a term of thirteen years in the State prison of Sing 
Sing, was discharged from there on the 8th of August, 

1882. He came to New York, was "converted," and 
joined the Salvation Army on the 1 6th of the same month. 
On the following day he stole a watch on Broadway, and 
was again condemned to five months' imprisonment. 
After having served this term he joined again the Army, 
and was promoted to the rank of Corporal. In April, 

1883, he was again arrested for fraud. 

A young girl of 14 years accused, in Syracuse, N. Y., 
one of the officers of the Army, a certain Mott, of seduc- 
tion and breach of promise of marriage. Mott did not 
deny the facts, but stated that he could not bother him- 
self about the marriage, he had to work at his great mis- 
sion, to convert the world, and could not fetter himself 
with such profane business as marriage. Mott has not lost 
his position with the Salvation Army. 

A Mrs. Thompson, in 1883, brought suit before the 
Supreme Court of the State of New York for divorce from 
her husband, who had been repeatedly guilty of improper 
intercourse with Mary Davidson, a soldier of the Salvation 
Army. 



140 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Samuel Harrington, of Brooklyn, a member of the Sal- 
vation Army, brought suit against th -; ear old 
preacher, Bundick, for seduction and rape, committed on 
his daughter, seventeen yi ars of : 

Caroline T. Gardner, occupying the position of a Cap- 
tain in the Salvation Army, stole clothing to the amount 
of sixty dollars from the house of a Mrs. Roozer. She 
pleaded guilty to the crin:e, and was condemned to two 
rs 1 imprisonment. From such a rabble the Salvation 
Army takes its recruits; Christian priests look upon it 
quietly and complacently, ar.d zealous people further it by 
large contributions in money. In the year 1SS3 the re- 
ceipts of the Salvation Army amounted to not less than 
three hundred and ninety-three thousand pounds, or about 
two million dollars. 

These Salvation Armies originated in England, but they 
have spread rapidly over Scotland. Ireland, Holland, Swe- 
den, Germany, Switzerland and the United States , : 
have even appeared in Australia and in the East Indies. 
Let us hope that the people will soon grow tired of this 
disgrace, and will put a stop to it, as has already been done 
in Switzerland. 

Christian Fanaticism. 

It is a painful fact in the history of the world that im- 
mediately after the appearance of that man who was to 
bring peace and good-will into the world there followed 
many centuries of bloodshed and crime, greater than any 
which had preceeded his coming. The most cruel perse- 
cutions against all who believed differently from those 
who called themselves the true followers of Jesus have 
been committed in the name of him who said: " I give 



CHRISTIANITY. 141 

you peace, I leave you my peace," and, "Thereby I 
shall know that you are my disciples, that you love one 
another.' ' How much blood has been shed ! How many 
cruel persecutions have been instigated ! How much 
misery has been caused ! 

But can we wonder at this, if we find in the Bible ex- 
pressions by St. Paul and others which are directly opposed 
to the gospel of peace and love, which Jesus has preached, 
and which, on the contrary, have excited hatred and per- 
secution ? 

St. Paul, in chap. i. 8 of his Epistle to the Galatians, 
says : " But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach 
any other gospel to you than that which we have preached 
unto you, let him be accursed." In the second Epistle of 
John, 10, 11, it is said, "If there come any one unto 
you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into 
your house, neither bid him God speed. For he that 
biddeth him God speed is partaken of his evil deeds." 
In Jeremiah, chap, xlviii. 10, we read, " Cursed be he that 
doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and cursed be he 
that keepeth back his sword from blood." 

St. Jerome utters the following curse against non- 
Christians: "And if thy younger brothers and sisters 
cling to thy neck, and if thy mother, with tears and dis- 
heveled hair and torn garments, shows thee the bosom 
which has nourished thee, and if thy father lies down on 
the threshold of thy house, kick them out, and hasten 
with dry eyes to the flag of the cross." 

These are expressions which can only excite the pas- 
sions of men, work evil, and stir up persecution and 
hatred; and we find innumerable instances in history 
where this has been the case. 



142 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

I will only quote a few facts: 

The wars of the Donatists in Africa in the fourth cen- 
tury. 

The persecutions of the Maccabees in the ninth cen- 
tury, which cost the lives of many hundreds of thousands 
of people. 

The seven Crusades from the eleventh to the thirteenth 
century. The English historian Hume comments upon 
these as follows: "After the taking of Jerusalem in the 
first Crusade nobody was spared ; the child was killed at 
its mother's breast, who was begging for mercy. Nearly 
ten thousand of the inhabitants, who had surrendered on 
the promise of free pardon, were butchered in cold 
blood. It is certain that during the whole of this terrible 
period the Christians have been far more cruel and merci- 
less than the Mohammedans, whose country they invaded; 
whilst the gallant Saladin, when Jerusalem was recon- 
quered by the Turks, never permitted any excesses on the 
part of his warriors. Historians calculate that during the 
century and a half in which the seven Crusades occurred 
more than two million people lost their lives." 

In 1 184 the Waldenses were excommunicated by Pope 
Lucius III., which gave the signal fjr their persecution. 
A contemporary writer, who was an eye-witness of the 
horrors which were committed, reports as follows: "To- 
day, the nth of June, I was present at the slaughter of 
the Waldenses. To speak the truth, I can compare the 
scene only to the butchering of so many sheep. Like a 
flock of sheep, they were locked up in a shed. The exe- 
cutioner entered, took one of the victims out, covered his 
face with a cloth, and led him into a field. There he 
made him kneel down and then cut his throat. Then he 



CHRISTIANITY. 143 

took the bloody cloth, went for another, and proceeded 
in the same manner. In this way eighty-eight people 
were killed, one after another. I shudder when I only 
think of the murderer as he stood with the bloody knife 
between his teeth, the bloody cloth in his hand, his bare 
arm dripping with blood, butchering one victim after the 
other." 

The Inquisition existed from the thirteenth even to the 
nineteenth century. P. A. Lorente, one of the last sec- 
retaries of the Inquisition, in his " History of the Inqui- 
sition," gives a list of those who, in Spain alone, suffered 
death ancUother punishments from 1452 to 1808. Thirty- 
one thousand seven hundred and eighteen people were 
burned ; 174,111 died in prison, or fled and were burned 
in effigy ; 287,522 suffered other punishments. The great- 
est number of victims fell in the time of Torquemada, who, 
from 1452 to 1499, forty-seven years, was Grand Inquisi- 
tor. During this period 8800 people were burned, 6400 
died in prison or fled, and 90,094 suffered other kinds of 
punishment. The Inquisition lasted through the seven- 
enteenth and eighteenth, and into the nineteenth cen- 
tury, and was only abolished in 1808, by Joseph Bona- 
parte. Ferdinand VII. re-established it in 1814, but was 
compelled, by the revolution of March 9th, 1820, to abol- 
ish it again. After the Restoration in 1825 it was once 
more introduced. In 1834 the Inquisition was again 
abolished and its property confiscated for the benefit of 
the national debt. Most of its horrors were committed 
between 1481 and 1746. From 1746 to 1759 ten people 
were burned alive, five were burned in effigy, and one 
hundred and seventy condemned to the galleys. From 
1 788 to 1 808 one person was burned alive ; in 1808 twenty- 



14^ THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

two were condemned to the galleys and to imprison- 
ment. We have no reliable data about the victims from 
1808 to the final abolition, but we know that nobody has 
been burned since 1808. 

The Inquisition flourished chiefly in Spain, but has also 
sacrificed numerous victims in France, Germany, Austria, 
Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy and Sardinia. More than 
twenty thousand people were butchered in the twelfth 
century in Beziers, in France. The murderers carried the 
cross before them. 

The Sicilian Vespers took place on the 30th of March, 
1282, when thousands of people perished by violence. 
Even now, six hundred years afterwards, the anniversary 
of this day of horrors is observed with festivities; the last 
took place in Palermo, in 1882, when four days were 
devoted to festive proceedings. 

In 1209 Pope Innocent III. proclaimed a crusade 
against the Albigenses which lasted for eighteen years, 
during which time many human beings were killed and 
the most beautiful parts of southern France were devas- 
tated. 

In the fourteenth century the persecutions and burn- 
ing of the Beguins on the Rhine and in France took 
place. 

From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, the Courts 
of Heresy. 

One hundred and ninety-one Flagellants were burned 
in Sangerhausen in 141 4. 

On the 6th of July, 141 5, John Huss was burnt in Con- 
stance. 

Jerome of Prague met the same fate on the 30th of May, 
1416. 



CHRISTIANITY. H5 

The terrible war of the Hussites lasted from 141 9 to 
r434; more than one hundred and fifty thousand people 
perished during this period. The Hussites called them- 
selves the "Warriors of God," or "The Champions of 
Evangelical Truth." They carried their terrible warfare 
from Bohemia into the neighboring countries of Moravia, 
Austria, Hungary, Bavaria, Silesia, Lucatia, Saxony and 
Franconia. Terror went before them, and the belief in 
their invincibility sustained their cruel power for many 
years. 

The persecution of the Huguenots continued from 1472 
to 1598. 

Savanarola was burnt in Florence, 23d of May, 1498. 

The fifteenth century witnessed the persecution of the 
Moravian Brothers. Many were tortured, burned alive, 
quartered or turned out of their houses, even those who 
were sick. A new persecution was aroused in 1547, and 
a great number of Moravian Brothers were compelled to 
fly to foreign countries. 

The cruel and murderous persecution of the Iconoclasts 
took place in the sixteenth century. 

On the 27th of October, 1553, Michael Servetus was 
burned in Geneva, at the instigation of Calvin, because he 
denied the doctrine of the Trinity. 

John Gentilis, a disciple of Servetus, was beheaded in 
Berne in 1560. 

In the year 1568 the Spanish Inquisition condemned a 
large number of the inhabitants of the Netherlands to 
death. 

At the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, in 1572, about 
thirty thousand people were killed in Paris alone, and 
more than one hundred thousand in the whole of France. 

(10) 



146 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The wars of the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. 

Giordano Bruno was burned in the year 1600, in Rome, 
by the Inquisition. 

Henning Brabant, a prominent citizen of Brunswick, 
was accused, in 1604, on account of his Calvinistic views, 
of having made a compact with the devil. He was im- 
prisoned, and in his attempt to escape broke one of his 
legs. He was put on the rack and tortured for three 
hours, by which one of his arms was torn from its socket. 
He was then condemned to death and carried to the place 
of execution. They first cut off two of his fingers and 
pinched him with red hot tongs. Not satisfied with these 
torments they split open his abdomen, and, that he might 
not lose consciousness, they held a sponge filled with aro- 
matic spirits under his nose. His accusers were bigoted 
Lutheran clergymen, who, even to the last moment, tried 
to convert him. 

In the year 1609 the Moors, the founders of art and 
science in Spain, were expelled on account of their belief. 

The Thirty Years' War, which lasted from 161 8 to 1648, 
sacrificed the lives of several millions of people, and re- 
tarded the progress of Germany for a century. The 
princely executioner, the Duke of Alba, boasted that, by 
him alone, eighteen thousand heretics perished in the 
Netherlands. 

On the 19th of February, 1619, Vanini was burned in 
Toulouse for his work on natural sciences. 

At the massacre of the Veltin Protestants in the year 
1690 about six hundred people lost their lives. 

At the storming and destruction of Magdeburg, in 1631, 
more than thirty thousand Protestants were murdered 
in the most cruel manner. Neither old nor young were 






CHRISTIANITY. 147 

spared. Children were thrown into the flames of burning 
houses. 

The middle of the seventeenth century witnessed the most 
cruel denominational persecutions in America. A law 
was published in Massachusetts which decided that faith 
alone, not good actions, was necessary for salvation. 
Whoever was opposed to the baptism of children was to be 
banished, and whoever denied the infallibility of the Bible 
was to be whipped in public; and, in case of the repeti- 
tion of his offense, he was to be condemned to death. 

One of the most cruel instances of persecution by Chris- 
tian fanatics is that of the Quakers. These peaceful, law- 
loving and industrious people were called by their enemies 
a detestable sect, and their doctrines were characterized 
as irreconcilable with any form of government. Wher- 
ever they showed themselves in England they were ex- 
posed to danger and punishment. They were whipped in 
public, and thrown into prison with robbers and mur- 
derers. Between 1650 and 1689 more than fourteen 
thousand were punished with fines and imprisonment, and 
more than three hundred perished in consequence of ill- 
usage and want. They fared even worse in the American 
colonies, where the> had sought shelter from their persecu- 
tors. In the Puritan States, among the " Holy Pilgrims," 
tolerance for other beliefs was unknown. 

The first two Quakers arrived in America in 1656. As 
soon as they had arrived their boxes were searched, their 
books confiscated and publicly burnt by the hangman. 
After having suffered great wrongs and persecution, and 
after having been kept in prison for five weeks, they were 
expelled from the country. The jailor robbed them of 
their beds and other necessaries because they could not 



148 the coming creed of the world. 

pay the prison fees. Eight Quakers, who had landed in 
Boston, were imprisoned and afterward sent back in the 
same ship which had brought them over. In October, 
1656, a law passed the Legislature of Massachusetts which 
provided that every captain of a vessel who brought a 
Quaker to the colony should pay a fine of £ 100 sterling, 
and find security to take him back again in the same ves- 
sel ; if the Quaker should venture to land he should be 
whipped in public and imprisoned. In the year 1658 
another law was passed in Massachusetts which provided 
that any person who should receive a Quaker into his 
house should pay a fine of £2 for every hour which the 
Quaker remained with him. If a Quaker was found any- 
where in the colony he should receive twenty lashes ; in the 
case he remained one of his ears should be cut off, or, if a 
woman, she should be publicly whipped. In case they did 
not leave then, whether a man or a woman, their tongue 
should be pierced with a red-hot iron. If a Quaker who 
had once been banished returned to the colony, he should 
at once be beheaded. Another law provided that every 
person belonging to the " accursed sect of Quakers " who 
was found within the territory of Massachusetts should 
be imprisoned, tried and banished, on penalty of death. 
This Christian law was put into execution in the same year. 
Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson were hanged 
in Boston on the 226. of October, 1658, and Mary Dyer 
suffered the same penalty on the following day. These exe- 
cutions were followed by other unspeakable cruelties. 

A law passed in England at last put a stop to these hor- 
rors. The hanging, flaying and burning of Quakers was 
abolished ; but the fanatics found means to further perse- 
cute these inoffensive people. The law against vagrants 






CHRISTIANITY. 149 

was enforced against them. According to this anybody 
might arrest a Quaker and drag him before the next magis- 
trate, where he was stripped down to the waist and pub- 
licly whipped. The victim was then tied to a cart and 
dragged from town to town until he reached the borders 
of the colony. In fact, the cruelties now became more 
terrible, and the human heart shudders at such horrors. 
In 1662, three women — Anna Coleman, Mary Tompkins 
and Alice Ambrose — were tied to a cart, and first whipped 
through Dover, and afterward through ten other cities. 
An old Quaker woman of 60 years, Elizabeth Houton, 
was whipped through Cambridge, Waterlow and Dedham; 
she was imprisoned and whipped again, and finally sent to 
Rhode Island, with an order to have her whipped again 
from city to city. 

Against the Catholics particularly stringent laws were 
issued. A Catholic priest performing any church service, 
or any Catholic keeping a school or engaged in the in- 
struction of the young, was to be punished with imprison- 
ment for life. The Catholics were not allowed to hold 
land. The church service, according to the rites of the 
Catholic Church, was strictly forbidden in Pennsylvania. 
Catholics were not allowed to settle in Georgia. In 1746 
a Catholic priest in New York was executed, having been 
falsely accused of conspiracy with negroes, and because he 
was a Catholic. 

The first Puritans who landed in America, in 1620 had 
fled from England to escape religious persecution. Yet 
these same people who had suffered most severely from 
intolerance became, in their new home, the most blood- 
thirsty persecutors of those who believed differently, and 
became a scourge of their fellow-citizens. 



150 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

And all these horrors were performed to preserve the 
"pure Christian religion." 

Even to-day, to the disgrace of our century and of 
America, that Puritan spirit of persecution, that dark, 
devilish Puritan hatred against all that believe differently, 
shows itself at every opportunity. It is the same gloomy 
spirit which inspires contempt of other creeds ; again and 
again it has attempted to revive the hateful Sunday laws, 
which are totally opposed to the spirit of our age, as in- 
t erfering with the liberty of our person and of our conscience, 
and which is the bitterest enemy of peaceful social life. 

In the seventeenth century the burning of heretics was 
one of the principal features of the festivities at royal 
marriages. Four hundred unfortunate people were sacri- 
ficed on one of these occasions, and the spectators looked, 
without any show of human feeling, upon the miserable 
victims of fanaticism. 

The same century witnessed the persecution of the Jews 
in Spain and persons of other creeds in England, Ireland 
and Scotland. 

More than thirty thousand families were compelled to 
leave the country during the Bohemian Counter-Reform- 
ation because they refused to become Catholics, 

Pope Urban VII., in the seventeenth century, pub- 
lished a bull, "In ccena Domini," in which every kind 
of heresy was cursed in the name of the Almighty God, 
Fa her, Son and Holy Ghost. This bull is read to this 
day in every Catholic church on Maundy-Thursday. 

In 1685 Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, 
which Henry IV. had issued in 1598 for the protection of 
the Protestants. In consequence of this revocation the 
Protestants lost all civil and religious rights; all contracts, 



CHRISTIANITY. 151 

sales, wills, marriages and baptisms were declared void. 
Their children were declared to be illegitimate ; they 
were taken away from their families, and when, after their 
eighth year, they professed any inclination for the Catholic 
religion, they were sent into monasteries to be educated. 
Those who remained faithful to their faith were deprived 
of their property. Protestant schools and churches were 
destroyed ; their church-yards were closed, and the dead 
bodies carried about in the streets. Dragoons of the royal 
army were quartered in Protestant houses, with instructions 
to abuse their hosts and to plunder their houses until they 
declared themselves ready to abjure their faith (Dragon- 
ades). Those who had assisted at the secret meetings of 
the Protestants, or who had taken part in their services, were 
sent to the galleys. Devastation spread over the land, 
women were found wandering in the fields, or hiding 
themselves in the forest to give birth to their children. 
Large numbers of prisoners, with ropes round their necks, 
were dragged from one end of the kingdom to the other. 
Children were torn away from their mothers, yea, even 
the delicate little creatures who are tied to us by the 
strongest bonds of love and duty were torn away from 
their mother's breast. The children were imprisoned in 
monasteries and convents, where they were taught to curse 
their parents. 

The persecution of the Camisards took place from 1701 
to 1705, during which period more than forty thousand 
people were executed by the Catholics under the most 
cruel torments. 

On Palm Sunday of the year 1703 two hundred 
Protestants, men, women and children, performed religious 
services in a private house in Nismes, in France ; they 



152 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

were surprised by the royal governor ; the house was sur- 
rounded and set on fire, and most of them perished in the 
flames. Those who attempted to escape were shot down 
in the street. Not even the child at the mother's breast 
was spared. 

In the year 1761 there lived in Toulouse, in France, a 
respectable merchant called Jean Calas, a Protestant, who 
was the father of several sons. One of these sons had been 
converted to the Catholic Church ; another, who had been 
in a state of melancholy and depression for some time, 
committed suicide one day by hanging himself in front of 
his father's house. The population, consisting chiefly of 
the most fanatic Catholics, without any cause or reason, 
accused the old man of the "murder of his son because the 
latter wished also to embrace the Catholic religion . He was 
tried and condemned to be put on the rack, and after- 
wards to be broken on the wheel. This act of fanaticism 
provoked everywhere a loud cry of indignation. 

In the latter half of the eighteenth century, a certain 
Rosenfeld wandered through the Mark Brandenburg, de- 
claring himself to be a new Christ. He gained a consid- 
erable following among the country people, and exercised 
such influence over them that they even offered him their 
daughters to satisfy his carnal desires, thinking that they 
were doing a work pleasing to God. As soon as the mat- 
ter became known to Frederick the Great, Rosenfeld was 
tried, condemned to be publicly whipped and to be im- 
prisoned for life. 

A' out the same time a shoemaker in Foelenbeck, Ger- 
many, quoting the Revelation as an authority, declared 
himself to be the second Christ. He had discovered a 
new Trinity. He did not pretend to be Jesus, who had 



CHRISTIANITY. 153 

already existed, nor was he Emmanuel, who was yet to 
come, but he was Christ, the son of Mary, ''the woman 
clothed in the rays of the sun." This Mary was the wife 
of another shoemaker, with whom he had improper inter- 
course. Even this man found followers. And another 
shoemaker family called itself the " Christ family." 

The year 1815 witnessed again the most cruel Protestant 
persecutions in Nismes. 

In the year 1826 a schoolmaster named Bipoll was 
burned in Valencia, in Spain, because he had embraced 
deism. 

In 1852 a certain Madai and his wife were sentenced, 
in Toscana, to the galleys because they had been converted 
to Protestantism. 

In Bell county, Texas, there existed for several years a 
society of so-called Free-thinkers, the president of which, 
in the year 1877, was Dr. Russell, a well-known and thor- 
oughly honorable man. During the night of the 6th of 
October, in that year, he was called up to visit a sick 
woman living at some distance from his dwelling-place. 
When he had followed for a short distance the man who 
had called him, he was suddenly surrounded by men armed 
with revolvers. They ordered him to undress himself, 
whipped him, and then commanded him to discontinue 
his lectures. On the following day a notice was put up at 
the place where Dr. Russell had been abused, threatening 
death to any one who would presume to take his place. 

Year after year collisions take place between Catholics 
and Orangemen in Canada, in which the former are gen- 
erally the aggressors. At a riot which took place on the 
29th of April, 1878, one man was killed and several others 
wounded. Several bloody riots took place in Scotland, 



154 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

in the summer of 1883, between Catholics and Orange- 
men, and in Ireland in November, 1883. 

A band of Catholics, on the 26th of June, 1879, sacked 
a Protestant school-house in the County Galway, Ireland, 
and threw all the Bibles which they found there into the 
sea. 

It is well known that the Greek Church, like all other 
Christian denominations, is divided into many sects. The 
dissenters, to the number of ten millions, are opposed to the 
doctrines of the Orthodox Church, and have been cruelly 
persecuted by the latter. Their churches were either de- 
stroyed or closed; a few which remained open were not 
allowed to be repaired. The dissenters were not per- 
mitted to print any religious works ; they could not be 
employed in government or municipal service, nor could 
they keep schools of their own ; yet their children were 
not allowed to enter the public schools. They were not 
permitted to employ servants or workmen of the Orthodox 
Church, nor to adopt the children of Orthodox parents. 
The Golos reports that on the 17th of July, 1879, a P art y 
of these dissenters, consisting of nineteen families, with 
little children, came from Kazan to Tifils, in the Cau- 
casus ; all the men were heavily laden with chains. For 
sixteen years they had been persecuted on account of their 
faith, and were finally banished to the Caucasus. 



The persecution of the Jews forms a separate chapter in 
the history of Christian fanaticism. It has dragged 
through all centuries and even to-day. in the nineteenth 
century, it has been resurrected, to the shame and disgrace 
of our time. The following data, although not at all com- 
plete, will satisfy our reader in regard to the unreasona- 



CHRISTIANITY. 155 

ble and bitter hatred which the Jews have suffered from 
their Christian fellow-men. 

The first Jewish persecution dates from the seventh 
century, when the Christians asserted that they saw in the 
Jews the authors of every public misfortune. 

From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, the 
period of the Crusades, the Jews were exposed to cruel 
persecutions, which were encouraged by the princes and the 
nobles of the country, who, in this manner, relieved them- 
selves of the debts which they owed to the Jews. These 
persecutions of the Israelites took place in Spain, under 
Alphonse III. ; in France, under Philip Augustus ; in 
England, in 1020, and again at the coronation of Rich- 
ard I. In the German and Italian cities where they were 
allowed to abide they were confined within a certain quar- 
ter of the town, which was called the "Ghetto," and 
which was closed at night. 

A cruel persecution of the Jews occurred in 11 72, dur- 
ing the third Crusade, in Gath, in Palestine. 

From the twelfth to the fifteenth century thousands of 
Jews were burned and <_ therwise cruelly murdered in Ger- 
many ; many of them rushed in despair into the flames of 
the burning synagogues. 

In the year 131 8 they were driven out of the country 
by Philip V. Those who allowed themselves to be bap- 
tized were permitted to remain, but even these were 
robbed of the property belonging to them and their 
children. 

Some twenty thousand Jews were burned in Strassburg 
during the fourteenth century. 

In the years 1348-49, when the plague, known as the 
"Black Death,' ' ravaged the countries of Europe, the 



156 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Jews were persecuted in the most cruel manner. They 
were accused of having caused this pestilence by poison- 
ing the wells. They were persecuted with fire and sword, 
and they were driven away even from those places where 
they had hitherto been tolerated. 

A cruel persecution of the Jews took place in Erfurt in 
the year 1349. 

In 1390 another persecution occurred, which was led by 
a priest, when four thousand men, women and children 
lost their lives. 

In 1454 they were expelled from Bavaria. 

In 1480 several thousands were burned in Spain. 

In 1506 more than two thousand baptized Jews were 
murdered in Lisbon. 

In 1509 they were driven from Cologne and Marburg. 

In 15 19 the whole Jewish community was expelled from 
Regensburg. The quarter which they had inhabited was 
pulled down with their synagogue, their burial-ground 
was devastated, and on the spot where their synagogue 
had stood a chapel was built, dedicated to the Virgin 
Mary. 

During the whole of the eighteenth century Jewish per- 
secutions took place in Russia. The Empress Elizabeth, in 
1743, expelled from St. Petersburg the Jews whom Peter the 
Great had hospitably received. Catherine II. permitted 
them to return ; they were again driven out of the capital 
by Nicholas I., and sent into the provinces. 

In 1 81 8 the Jews were expelled from Luebeck, and the 
cities of Hamburg and Frankfort deprived them of the 
privileges which they had enjoyed for many years. 

As late as 1822 the Jews were not allowed to enter the 
service of the state in Prussia. 



CHRISTIANITY. 157 

In 1839 the Jews were forbidden to be in the city of 
Bale on Sundays. 

The Jews were exposed to the most cruel persecution 
and barbarous torments in 1840, in Damascus, with the 
authority of the representative of a Christian power, the 
French Consul-General, Count Ratti-Menton. 

In 185 1 the law preventing the Jews from settling in 
any of the Cantons of Switzerland was strictly enforced. 

In 1870 the most cruel deeds of violence were practiced 
upon the Jews in Roumania ; the Prince of Roumania and 
his fanatical adherents were by no means opposed to these 
acts of violence. 

On the 23d of June, 1878, a rising against the Jews oc- 
curred in Kalisch, which may be numbered amongst the 
most violent excesses which have taken place against this 
race. The synagogues and other houses of prayer were 
destroyed, altars and pulpits were demolished, and even 
the Ark of the Covenant was torn open, and the rolls con- 
taining the law destroyed. Many Jews were killed with 
flails and scythes, and the families were obliged to barri- 
cade themselves in their houses. 

The Catholic party in the German Parliament proposed, 
in November, 1878, a measure against the Jews who nek} 
judicial positions. 

The proprietor of a large hotel in the American waten 
ing-place Saratoga refused to receive Israelites in his 
house. This evil example was followed by some other 
hotel proprietors in the neighborhood of New York. 

In 1879 placards were posted in the streets of Lachaux 
de Fonds, in Switzerland, threatening the Jews with death. 

An attempt at a Jewish persecution began in the summer 
of 1879, m Berlin. At the head of this movement was 



158 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

the court preacher, Stoecker, who was also a member of 
the German parliament. A petition was circulated which 
prayed that the number of Jewish residents in any city of 
the Empire should be limited ; banking and other business 
houses conducted by Jews were to be subjected to excessive 
taxation; they w r ere to be excluded from all government 
offices. This petition was signed in a comparatively short 
time by two hundred and fif.y thousand names. This 
hatred of the Jews soon became prominent in other cities 
of Germany. In Crefeld, the house of an Israelite merchant 
was demolished. 

In the University building, in Leipsic, a placard was 
placed asking the students to assist in the expulsion of 
their fellow-students of the Jewish faith, and also to peti- 
tion the authorities for the removal of Jewish professors. 

The bad example which Berlin had set soon had its 
effect in other countries. In the Hungarian village of 
Tisza Ezlar a rumor was circulated, about Easter-time, 
1882, that the Jews had inveigled a young Christian girl 
into their synagogue, and had murdered her to use her 
blood, which, according to an old tradition, the Jews 
need for certain ceremonies. At the trial it was proved 
that the rumor was without foundation, and that the 
fanatics had persuaded a young boy, a son of one of the 
accused persons, to perjure himself in order to produce 
evidence. Fanaticism continued to rage with unabated 
violence, and produced Jewish persecutions in other parts 
of Hungary even after the accused had been acquitted, 
and the falsity of the accusation had been proved. 

In Gross-Surany the mob tried to throw a Jewish 
woman into the flames of a burning house. A Jew who 
had attempted to prevent this outrage was shamefully 






CHRISTIANITY. 159 

abused, and another who tried to assist was so cruelly 
treated that he lost one hand. 

Jewish persecutions in Russia have occurred quite re- 
cently. In St. Petersburg a great number of men of 
business who had been settled there for many years re- 
ceived orders to leave the city within twenty-four hours. 
In Elizabetgrad every house belo»ging to the Jews was 
destroyed; whole rows of houses were leveled to the 
ground, and the city had the appearance of having been 
visited by an earthquake. People who had enjoyed 
wealth and comfort were made beggars, many were 
cruelly wounded, many were killed. Thousands of these 
unfortunate people had become homeless and destitute, 
and had to rely upon public charity, whilst the authorities 
gave strict orders against the opening of subscription lists 
for the benefit of the sufferers. 

Jewish persecutions, of the most ruthless character took 
place in August, 1883, in several Russian cities, among 
others in Paulograd, Rostow, Berchadi and Yekaterino- 
slav. In Berchadi eighty houses belonging to Jews were 
burned to the ground, and in Yekaterinoslav three hun- 
dred and forty-six Jewish dwellings were plundered and 
destroyed. 

Even in free Switzerland, in St. Gall, a riot against the 
Jews took place in June, 1883, when many Jewish houses 
and stores were demolished. 

That such scenes occur in Russia, a country which is 
still in a state of semi-barbarism, cannot be wondered 
at; but when in civilized countries like Germany, the 
boasted home of intelligence and culture, when, in the 
very capital of that country, such scenes are still pos- 
sible, without the immediate and energetic interference of 



160 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

the government, such a state of things can only arouse a 
feeling of shame and disgrace. 

And the Christian priests, whose duty it should be to 
work against such an abomination, and who have the power 
from their pulpits to prevent them, do nothing to inter- 
fere with the rabble which is fired by the most ferocious 
fanaticism. They look with indifference upon these 
horrors, as if they had nothing to do with them. Shame 
upon such priests who pretend to have religion in their 
hearts, and who promote cruelty and ungodliness ! 

What would the Christians say if the Jews had com- 
mitted outrages such as we have described above ! Are 
the Jews inferior to the Christians ? It is not the fault of 
the Jews which has caused these persecutions, but the 
defective moral and religious education which both the 
Protestant and Catholic Churches have given to their fol- 
lowers. That the Jews are in every respect equal to the 
Christians has been proved in thousands of instances, in 
which Jews have evinced a nobility of heart and spirit 
which must arouse our admiration. Their family life, 
their perseverance, temperance and industry, the respect 
of children towards their parents, their conjugal fidelity, 
call for our highest respect. Statistics of all countries 
teach us that the percentage of crime is smallest among 
the Jews. According to Schleiden, who is an authority 
in these matters, one illegitimate child comes to every ten 
persons among the Protestants, whilst among the Jews the 
proportion is one to twenty-five. In the Grand Duchy of 
Baden, one hundred and thirty-two suicides among 
Christians occurred during the ten years from 1836 to 
1845, whilst not a single one took place among the Jews 
residing in that country. 



CHRISTIANITY. 161 

And while the Jews in New York constitute about ten 
per cent, of the population, they form less than one per 
cent, of the criminal classes. 

It is unnecessary to dwell here upon the brilliant success 
which Jews have achieved in science, philosophy, medi- 
cine, jurisprudence, also in music and other arts. 

Do the Christians and Jewish persecutors forget that 
Christianity is entirely based upon Judaism, and that 
Jesus himself was a Jew ? 

As regards the accusation which has been brought against 
the Jews, that in their great religious ceremonies they use 
the blood of Christians, Mons. Renan, the celebrated 
author of the " Life of Jesus," on the occasion of the Jew- 
ish persecutions in Tisza Ezlar, wrote to the rabbis in 
Hungary as follows: "Of all the slanders which hatred 
and fanaticism have circulated, that which accuses the Jews 
of the murder of Christians for the purpose of using their 
blood at religious ceremonies is surely the most absurd. 
One of the principal characteristics of the Jewish faith is 
the commandment against the shedding of blood. This 
measure of precaution, which served in former times to 
keep awake the respect due to life, has been observed in 
the most conscientious manner by the Jews of all times. 
Yet it is pretended that the pious Israelite, who would 
rather die of hunger than eat a morsel of flesh that has not 
been perfectly cleansed from blood, would, at any relig- 
ious ceremony, partake of blood. This accusation is as 
monstrous as it is stupid. I am convinced that all these 
stories about the bloody Jewish Easter festival are wanting 
in even the shadow of foundation. If such a misdeed had 
ever been committed, the wretch who would have been 
guilty of such a crime would have acted in contempt of 
11 



1 62 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

all Jewish law ; and I go farther and maintain that such a 
deed is actually impossible. In the domain of slander 
the human imagination is very fertile. The fable of those 
mysterious meals where human blood was used has been 
used as an accusation against those whom a blind preju- 
dice wishes to destroy. The same false accusation has 
been brought against the Christians, but no such crime 
has ever denied a Christian ceremony. It would be a 
worthy task of Christianity to extirpate that disgraceful 
falsehood, which has already caused so much mischief." 



We have sufficiently proved in the foregoing pages what 
part Christian fanaticism has played in the lives of nations. 
How it has destroyed the public peace, and excited and 
aroused cruelty and bloodshed. We will now quote a few 
instances in the lives of individuals and families where it 
has led to the most outrageous excesses. The data are 
necessarily incomplete. With the exception of the first 
five, which occurred in 1725, 1794, 1S05, 1819 and 1855, 
all have taken place within the last twenty years, and have 
become known accidentally to the author by reading. He 
who would make a systematic collection of them would 
have overwhelming material before him; for instances of 
fanaticism have never been wanting at any time and in 
any place. 

In the first half of the eighteenth century there existed 
in Paris a sect called the Convulsionists of St. Medard, 
who thought to please God by undergoing the most terri- 
ble self-inflicted torments. They tied themselves on 
wooden crosses. The celebrated physician Moraud, of the 
Hotel Dieu, saw some of them who had been nailed by 
their hands and feet on the cross. Others pierced their 



CHRISTIANITY. 163 

flesh with swords, and split their tongues in twain. All 
this was done to represent the hideousness of sin in its 
glaring light, — sin which can only be expiated by bodily 
torments. The crucifixion was to represent the sufferings of 
Jesus. More than five hundred female Medardists exposed 
themselves to the torments of fire, or had their heads 
squeezed between wooden planks; they allowed them- 
selves to be castigated with heavy iron rods, or with 
stones, or with wooden cudgels, in order to prove that all 
these torments only caused them pleasure, and that God 
had made them invulnerable. 

In the year 1794 a certain McCausian, of Gardner, 
Massachusetts, killed a woman whom, he said, had sinned 
against the Trinity. After he had killed her he set the 
house on fire, and when called to account he made no 
denial of his crime, but said that he had only done his 
duty towards God, and that his conscience was perfectly 
at ease about it. 

In 1805 there lived in Venice a shoemaker called 
Matteo Casale, who, through continual Bible-reading, had 
come to the conclusion that he should die on the cross like 
Jesus. For this purpose he manufactured a heavy wooden 
cross, upon which he nailed himself by his hands and feet, 
and also wounded himself in the side. The cross, which 
had been fastened to the ceiling by thick ropes, was so 
arranged that he could let it glide out of the window. 
There he was seen and taken down, and placed under 
medical treatment. The superhuman energy possessed by 
this man, the madness and contempt of pain to which 
his fanaticism drove him, are almost incredible. We 
find a minute description of this case in the sixth volume 
of the New Pitaval. 



1 64 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Margaret Peter, in 1819, in Switzerland, crucified her 
sister first, and then allowed herself to be nailed to the 
cross. 

The shoemaker Vogt, in Chemnitz, in 1855, persuaded 
two women whose children were sick that the latter were 
possessed by the devil, and should be sacrificed. This 
deed of horror was actually accomplished by the two 
mothers. 

The wife of a farmer named Bender, in Clinton County, 
Illinois, in January, 1873, na d assisted at a series of re- 
vival meetings, whieh had excited her very much. During 
the night of the 1st of February, Bender heard a noise in 
his bed-room, and when he had made a ligh the saw his 
wife just leaving the room with her only child, a boy 
thirteen months old, in her arms. He asked her what she 
was going to do, to which she replied that her boy's name 
was Isaac, and that God had appeared to her and com- 
manded her to follow the example of Abraham and to sacri- 
fice her child, and that she was going into the kitchen to 
get a knife. The terrified husband snatched the child 
away from her, and watched carefully over his wife until 
the morning. During the next few days Bender thought 
he had succeeded in calming his wife. But when he re- 
turned, some days afterwards, to his house, and opened the 
door of the kitchen, a terrible spectacle was presented to 
his sight. In the middle of the kitchen stood a large 
wooden block covered with blood; on one side of the 
block lay the body of his child, and on the other side his 
head and a blood-stained hatchet. The mother was sitting 
by the side in a rocking-chair, and, while rocking herself 
to and fro, she exclaimed again and again, "I have fol- 
lowed the commandment." 



CHRISTIANITY. 165 

In White's Valley, near Honesdale, Pa., there lived a 
farmer, named Hecker, whose daughter had imagined for 
many years past that she had committed a great sin 
against "her Emmanuel." In order to expiate her trans- 
gressions, she built altars on her father's farm, where she 
sacrificed lambs to reconcile the offended godhead. One 
day, when Hecker entered his kitchen, he saw, to his 
terror, the charred body of his daughter on one of her 
own altars. The unfortunate girl had sacrificed herself to 
obtain forgiveness for the supposed sin which she imagined 
she had committed against Emmanuel. 

In Transylvania there lived a colonist, Szabo, who for 
a long time had meditated what sacrifice he should bring 
to God in order to expiate the injury he had done to the 
property of a neighbor. As he did not know how to help 
himself, he asked his wife, his sister and his mother what 
he should do. They persuaded him to read the Bible 
carefully, where he would be sure to find the desired 
advice. He did this, and when he came to the passage 
describing the sacrifice of Isaac, he decided to perform 
this sacrifice with his own child, a little girl of three 
years. On the morning of the 19th of March, 1873, ne 
awoke the child from her sleep and took her with him into 
the forest. There he knelt down by a tree and prayed 
fervently for some time, then he undressed his victim and 
killed her. He prayed again over the dead body, which 
he buried, and went home contented. 

A very similar case to that of Casale occurred in Irkutzk, 
in Siberia, in the summer of 1875. A man belonging to 
the Orthodox Church, by continued reading of the Bible, 
had come to the conclusion that the self-denials of which 
the Scriptures speak are not sufficient, that, on the 



166 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

contrary, he would have to pass through all the sufferings 
which Christ had endured for the salvation of the world. 
He proceeded exactly like Casale and crucified himself. 

One of the many victims of the so-called Evangelist 
Moody is a young mulatto of 19 years, Edward Williams, 
who was employed in a business house, and was respected 
as an honest and faithful young man. In March, 1876, 
he attended several of the revival meetings which Moody 
and Sankey were holding in New York. One evening, 
after one of these meetings, he returned home in a state 
of frenzy. The next morning he rushed into the office of 
Dr. Bergh, swinging a sword in his hand, and exclaiming : 
" Get out from here, I am God; Mr. Moody sent me to 
you in the name of Jesus." He was sent to a hospital, 
and there he continued his ravings : li I see a hundred and 
fifty thousand angels around the Lamb, and good Mr. 
Moody is the archangel. Oh! if I had only a heavenly 
banjo to accompany the godly Sankey, how beautiful that 
would be." The poor fellow, who had become com- 
pletely insane, had to be put in a straight-jacket and re- 
moved to an asylum. 

In the little city of Kronach, in Germany, three cases of 
Christian fanaticism occurred in October, 1876. The wife of 
a tanner was sent to the lunatic asylum because she imagined 
herself constantly surrounded by angels, and she believed 
that religion was in danger. A locksmith was in con- 
stant communication with the Trinity and with Pontius 
Pilate ; and a third, a master tailor, had become crazy 
from fear that the cause of religion was in danger. 

Another case of self-crucifixion occurred in May, 1877. 
Simon Bernik, a groom in the employ of Prince Schwarz- 
enberg, spread himself on the floor of the stable with his 



CHRISTIANITY. 167 

face upwards, and then nailed himself down as upon a 
cross, wounding himself at the same time in several places 
with a knife. 

In Carondelet, in Missouri, lived a man of the name of 
Lutner, who, with his wife, had been known for many 
years as a fanatic. In May, 1877, tne door of the house 
had been closed for many days, during which the singing 
of psalms and hymns could be heard outside. The neigh- 
bors began to be frightened on account of Lutner's little 
daughter, and went to inform the police. The door had 
to be forced, as Lutner refused to open it. He answered 
every question which was put to him with biblical verses, 
and finally became so furious that he had to be bound, 
and, together with his wife, who had also become crazy, 
was led into prison. There they continned to sing hymns, 
and spit into the face of everybody w ho approached them. 
These two people were members of the Lutheran com- 
munity. 

A farmer named Newton became, in 1877, the leader of 
revival meetings which were held in Phillipton, Mass. He 
completely lost his reason. He pinned his old father down 
to the ground, and called upon him to forgive his enemies. 
He bade an approaching locomotive to stop in the name 
of God, and he anointed his wife from head to foot with 
butter, which he said was his religious duty. 

Two young girls drowned themselves in the stone well 
containing the so-called holy water of Marpingen. Their 
dead bodies arrived on the 18th of August, 1877. in St. 
John. 

In December, 1877, a man 71 years old, near Brown- 
ville, Ohio, murdered his daughter by splitting her skull 
with a hatchet. W .en he was asked for the motive of 



168 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

this fearful deed, he replied that she intended to join the 
Lutheran Church, and that her acquaintance with a man 
had so much enraged him that he thought it his duty to 
kill her. He said he had carefully studied the Bible, and 
he had found there that it was right to kill an adulteress. 

In February, 1878, there lived in the neighborhood of 
Jaiiestown, Wisconsin, a farmer named Johnson. He 
and his wife and his brother John became mad at the 
same time. Johnson and his wife used to get up in the 
middle of the night, dress themselves in their best clothes, 
and go into the fields to pray. They continued this for 
several days without taking care of their five little chil- 
dren or of their cattle. Neighbors who tried to approach 
them in a kindly spirit were driven back by Johnson, 
who had armed himself with an axe ; his mother and 
younger brother were not able to induce him to let them 
take care of their little children, who were crying with 
cold and hunger, and of the starving cattle. Johnson was 
finally disarmed, and his children sent to friends. 

In 1878, near Uxbridge, Massachusetts, a naked man 
called Roches was arrested on the high road about mid- 
night. He said that he was going to a missionary meet- 
ing, and that on the way he had met the devil, who had 
looked sharply into his eyes. Roches then remembered 
that he had something to confess, but he had forgotten 
what it was; he knew, however, that the only way to 
deliver himself from the power of the devil was to walk 
naked a mile backwards; for that reason he had undressed 
himself and put his clothes in a certain place which he 
named. 

A certain Price, a minister, who lived, in 1879, m 
Louisiana, imagined that he had to kill people in order to 



CHRISTIANITY. 169 

free himself from the snares of the devil. He went to 
work in good earnest ; he had already seriously wounded 
one person, and was about shooting another, when he was 
struck down by a ball. 

In June of the same year a milkman named Kemmler, 
in Holyoke, Mass. , killed his three children. When he was 
asked what was his motive for this deed, he said, "I killed 
them, and they died and went to heaven. " "Why did 
you not kill yourself?" "That would not have been 
right, because I should have gone to hell if I had killed 
myself." " But how could you find the heart to kill your 
innocent children?" "Should I see that they grew up 
and went astray. I knew that if they died they would go 
direct to heaven. I did not want them to get into evil 
ways. If I had not been a Christian, it would have been 
a matter of indifference to me." 

In Pocasset, Massachusetts, there existed, in 1879, a 
sect called the Second Adventists. A certain Freeman and 
his wife thought they would do a work pleasing to God 
by following the example of Abraham, and sacrificed their 
little girl, five years old, whom they loved dearly, on the 
1st of May, 1879. Freeman pretended to have had a 
wonderful vision about a week before, and that since then 
he had not been able to eat or to sleep. The Lord, he said, 
had commanded him to sacrifice his little daughter, who 
would rise 'again in three days. On the day before be 
sent word through the village that he would communicate 
a wonderful revelation and bring an orthodox sacrifice. 
At three o'clock in the afternoon the members of the 
Gect appeared in Freeman's house. Before their arrival 
he had murdered his child with all kinds of ridiculous 
antics, which he considered religious ceremonies. The 



I/O THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

dead body of the child was lying on a table, which repre- 
sented the altar, and which was covered with blood. 
When his friends, who also believed that he had done a 
righteous work, left the house, he barricaded himself 
within and began singing religious songs, which he 
thought would affect the resurrection of his child in three 
days. All the other followers of the sect approved of the 
deed committed by Freeman. A child who only a few 
days before joyfully played about the streets, who had 
been lying innocently on the sofa while her father and his 
friends were singing and praying, was cruelly murdered by 
her father, and her dead body shown to the other fanatics 
with the words : "I have done it to the glory of God ; " 
and the people around him believed this. The mother 
and the grandmother of the child stood by and expressed 
their approval, and said that it was God's immediate com- 
mand that the child should be sacrificed, and that it would 
rise again after three days. What a terrible illusion ! 

In October, 1879, a preacher called Haynes, in Corsi- 
cana, Texas, had driven several persons crazy by his 
sermons. He persuaded his followers that, by his 
means, Christ would again appear on earth, and that he 
(Haynes) was able to perform all the miracles which 
Christ had done. Among those who had lost their 
reason w r as another preacher of the name of Goodnight, 
whom he had persuaded that if he (Goodnight) would 
sacrifice his little girl, Haynes would raise it again from 
the dead after three days. Two women of good family 
had likewise lost their reason in consequence of Haynes' 
preaching. 

In the year 1879 there existed in Wosnessensk, in Russia, 
a certain sect which had seceded from the Orthodox 



CHRISTIANITY. 171 

Church, and which called itself the " Stundists." Great 
efforts were made to induce them to return to the 
Orthodox Church. For this purpose several hundred 
members of the Orthodox Church dragged a number of 
Stundists, and intimidated them by threats until a portion 
of them declared that they would return to the Church, 
and in case they should again secede they would subject 
themselves to receive five hundred lashes. Some of them 
resisted, however, and were most cruelly beaten with rods 
and scourges. Among these was a married couple of the 
name of Schunenko, who had to endure great sufferings 
from the fanaticism of their opponents. The woman, after 
having received more than one hundred lashes, was hung up 
by her hair. She still persisted in her refusal to return to 
the Church, 1 and again received a number of lashes. The 
physician who" examined her declared that if this torment 
had lasted a little longer the woman would have died 
under her sufferings. 

An Adventist preacher named Buck, living in a miser- 
able shanty near New Hamption, Iowa, gained his 
living by pretending to heal the sick by laying on of 
hands. One day loud cries of pain were heard proceed- 
ing from Buck's house. Looking through a crack in the 
door the neighbors saw that Buck was beating his son 
most cruelly, around whose neck he had tied a rope. The 
poor boy begged his father not to kill him. Since then 
the boy has disappeared, and it is most likely that Buck, 
who belonged to the same class of fanatics as Freeman, in 
Massachusetts, has sacrificed the child. 

In Castle Grove, Iowa, in January, 1880, a Mrs. Ira 
Steward was just about butchering her child on an altar, 
when fortunately some friends arrived and prevented her. 



172 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

In j 880 a woman fasted for forty days, as she said, ac- 
cording to the command of God, and became mad in 
consequence of it. 

In the beginning of March, 1880, the following adver- 
tisement appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle : " Wanted, a 
Christian-minded man who is willing and ready to die for 

Christ. .Apply No. Dean Street." A number of 

people who had read the advertisement thought that a 
Christian -minded man was wanted for some work. They 
went to the house and were not a little terrified when they 
found a man who intended to follow the example of 
Abraham, and was looking for somebody to sacrifice. 

A Mrs. Caroline Jrazier, who, in March, 1880, had 
attended several revival meetings in New York, had been 
put into such a state of excitement by them that she 
refused to take any food for the sake of saving her soul. 
She persisted in this for several weeks, lost her reason, 
and died soon afterwards. 

In 1880 there lived in Clarksville, Kentucky, a certain 
Dan Lyle, with his wife and an Hungarian woman named 
Susan Talley. Lyle proclaimed that he was Christ, his 
wife was the Virgin Mary, and Talley a prophetess. He 
appeared in several churches and wanted to preach, which 
of course he was not allowed to do. When they tried to 
arrest him he, armed with an axe, made a violent resist- 
ance. When he was finally overcome and they entered 
his house, they perceived a strong smell of decaying flesh, 
and in searching the house they found the dead bodies of 
three children, of two, three, and five years of age re- 
spectively, whom Lyle had killed by breaking their necks. 

A Mrs. Frick, in Stuttgart, attempted suicide in August, 
1880. She stabbed herself in several places, and washed 



CHRISTIANITY. 173 

her children with the blood flowing from her wounds, 
exclaiming that the body and blood of Jesus Christ could 
help her no more, and that she was lost. 

A Sanctificationist in Dallas, Texas, in January, 1881, 
built an immense wooden cross, and, believing that he 
was a second Christ, took it on his shoulders and set out 
on a pilgrimage to the East. He was arrested and induced 
to burn the cross and go home. 

A reformer named Matlock appeared in Arkansas in the 
summer of 1881. His theory was that in order to attain 
eternal life it was necessary to shed blood. In August 
of the same year he murdered a planter named Miller. 
By the exertions of his lawyer he was acquitted. Shortly 
afterwards his dead body was found hanging on a tree. 

In November, 1881, a fisherman, Josiah Smith, in Santa 
Anna, California, thought that he had heard the voice of 
Jehovah, which commanded him, as Abraham, to kill his 
child. Smith, armed with a knife, took his son, fourteen 
years old, and waited for a moment to receive a counter- 
command, and when this did not come he killed the child. 

A machinist, Enos Silvester, in 1882, was under the 
hallucination that Christ had asked him to sacrifice his 
son. One night the neighbors were aroused by the cries 
of Mrs. Silvester, and when they rush*ed to the house they 
found him in the act of binding his son, to burn him at a 
stake which he had erected in one of the rooms. He was 
arrested and taken to a lunatic asylum. 

A Miss Sarah Elstone committed suicide in Canada in 
1882. She burnt herself to death on a pile which she 
herself had built, leaving a letter in which she declared 
that she was tired of life, and had determined to sacrifice 
herself. Her last words were : " I am going to Jesus." 



174 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Three people lost their reason in Grand Rapids, Michi- 
gan, in 1882, in consequence o the revival meetings held 
by the so-called boy preacher, Harrison. The last of 
these cases was that of a Miss Emmons, who became a raving 
maniac, although before she had taken part in those pro- 
ceedings she possessed full reasoning power. 

In December, 1882, a woman was found in Siegen, in 
Westphalia, lying in a most filthy state in bed, which she 
had not left for six years, admitting into her room only a 
boy who brought her something to eat. When she was 
asked to rise she said she could not do this until a certain 

K , a man belonging to the Anabaptists, came and 

commanded her to rise. She had covered every object in 
the room with biblical passages, relating mostly to the 
redemption. 

Professor Wilson, in St. Louis, in January, 1883, began 
to starve himself to death because, he said, God had com- 
manded him to do so. 

A farmer, Mick, in Bloomington, 111., who had lost his 
reason through brooding over the Bible, in January, 1883, 
expressed his intention of sacrificing his son for the 
salvation of the world. His neighbors prevented him 
from carrying out this horrible deed, and he was over- 
powered after violent resistance. 

In the same month, near Reading, Pa., a man was seen 
kneeling on the drift ice of the Schuylkill river. After 
some resistance on his part he was brought to the land. 
He said that God had commanded him to pray. He tore 
himself away and rushed into the water, where he was 
drowned. 

A Mrs. Zenwirk, in Milwaukee, in January, 1883, sacri- 
ficed her three little girls, aged respectively four years, 



CHRISTIANITY. 175 

twenty months, and four months. She was about to hang 
herself, but was surprised and prevented. Day after day 
she hid been found with a prayer-book in her hand, totally 
neglecting her household duties. When she was asked 
why she had committed this horrible deed, she replied: 
"I have read in a good book that it is right to sacrifice 
children." 

In the same month a certain Southwick, in Charlotte, 
Michigan, was about to shoot his family because, he said, 
God had commanded him to do so. 

In February, 1883, a man named Jesse Wilhelm died in 
the lunatic asylum, Norristown, Pennsylvania. The 
clergyman whose church he had attended had preached 
that it was sinful to work on a Sunday. On one Sunday 
Wilhelm saw his boat, which had sprung a leak, and which 
he might have repaired in five minutes, sinking before his 
eyes, because he was afraid to sin against the Sunday law. 
The same clergyman had repeatedly declared that Protest- 
ants and those belonging to the Reformed Church would 
go to hell. This made such an impression upon the man, 
whose mother and sisters were Protestants, that he lost 
his reason. 

In June, 1883, tne tailor Genz, in Butzdorf, Germany, 
murdered his sleeping wife with the blade of a scythe, 
which he drove into her head. He then sat down by her 
bed praying, and said that the angel Gabriel had com- 
manded him to kill his wife. 

A laborer named Hicks, in Charleston, Illinois, in 
August, 1883, conceived that one of his children was 
Christ returned to earth, and would have to suffer death 
on the cross. He infected his wife and two of his children 
with the same idea. They set about to make a cross, and 



176 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

were just about to perform the crucifixion when they were 
prevented by neighbors. 

In the middle of the year 1883 Sylvester Knott, a 
farmer, living in an isolated spot on the shore of Lake 
Erie, attended a meeting of the so-called Salvation Army 
at Franklin. He became very much excited, and finally 
insane. For weeks he wandered up and down the shore, 
declaiming on dogmatical themes, picturing the horrors of 
the Judgment Day, and calling upon sinners to worship or 
be eternally lost. On September 1st, he planted a large 
cross in the woods upon which he crucified his eight-year- 
old son, believing the boy would be tormented in hell-fire 
forever unless he died the death of Jesus. With almost 
superhuman strength Knott held the lad firmly while 
driving a large nail through one of the little fellow's hands, 
perfectly regardless of his piteous cries for mercy. The 
dreadful work was interrupted by some wood-cutters who 
happened to be passing. Leaving his son hanging on a 
nail, Knott fled, first striking down one of the rescuers 
with the hammer. At midnight the crazy man returned, 
smashed in the door of his house, and knocked his wife 
insensible at a single blow, Entering a chamber in which 
his only daughter, a girl of seventeen years, lay asleep, 
he bound her hand and foot and carried her to a lonely 
place in the forest where cords of wood were piled. An 
altar was quickly built, and upon it the madman secured 
the girl. " Even as Abraham did with Isaac, will I offer 
you as a burnt offering unto God," chanted the madman, 
setting the funeral pyre on fire. The flames soon reached 
the limbs of the girl, whose shrieks of agony and prayers 
for a more merciful death were music to the fanatic's ears. 
Dancing around the heap on which lay the girl, he 



CHRISTIANITY. 177 

implored the Almighty to accept the sacrifice as an atone- 
ment for the sinful deeds committed by him in past years. 
He added fresh fuel to the altar. But help arrived in time to 
prevent the consummation of the fearful design. Two 
young men, crossing the woods on their way home from a 
party, saw a bright light and heard the girl's screams. 
One felled the father while his companion scattered the 
blazing wood and lifted the girl from her fiery bed. The 
cords that bound her limbs were transferred to those of 
the maniac. The girl's legs were already badly burned, 
and there were large blisters on her arms, shoulders and 
sides. After her rescue she raved night and day, and 
probably has been sent, together with her fanatic father, 
to an insane asylum. 

In Irwin, a small place in Schuyler county, 111., a sect 
called " The Pilgrims " had just finished a little church, 
which was to be consecrated within a few weeks. But this , 
was a thorn in the eyes of another sect, and during the 
night of September 8th, 1883, the little church was blown 
up with powder. There is no doubt that the intentions of 
the fanatical crimnals had been to destroy, together with 
the building, the life of the pastor, who used to sleep there ; 
but he had slept that night in another house and thus his 
life was saved. 

All this is eloquent testimony of the mischief done by 
Christian fanaticism. We may look all over the world, and 
nowhere shall we find such bigotry and intolerance as in 
the Christian Church. In India, on the banks of the 
Indus and Ganges, in China, and in Japan, there live peo- 
ple who belong to different creeds, and pray before differ- 
ent altars. Yet they do not hate or persecute each other 
because one worships Brahma, another Buddha, another 

(12) 



178 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Christna, or follows the doctrines of Con-fu-tse. In all 
countries where Christianity prevails it is different ; there 
we must go to find fanaticism. 

For centuries past Christian fanaticism and the differ- 
ence of opinion on questions pertaining to the Church 
have been the cause of unheard of cruelties, have shed 
streams of blood, and devastated flourishing countries for 
generations to come, — all this under the foolish idea that 
Christianity is better than all other creeds, and that within 
Christianity itself each sect possesses alone the true faith, 
and that all who believe differently must be forced into being 
converted. Under no flag have such terrible cruelties been 
committed as under the sign of the cross ; and all different 
denominations are c like in this. The reformers Luther and 
Calvin were fanatics like the rest. Calvin caused Servetus 
to be burnt ; and Luther, when the German peasants 
tried to shake off their hard yoke, called on the princes to 
kill them like mad dogs. He also represented that the 
best actions of men were worth nothing if they did not 
believe every word of the Bible. It was he who resisted 
Zwingli's reasonable explanation of the Communion, and 
would not allow the words: " This means my body, and 
this means my flesh," to be introduced into the service ; 
it was he who believed in a personal devil and rejected free 
inquiry with the words : " Reason is the devil's whore." 

Much blood has been shed by Christian fanaticism, and 
it may boast of having written the history of Christianity 
in letters of blood ; and if, to-day, they no longer burn 
heretics, it is not the merit of Christianity, or because 
Christianity has made the world more humane, but it is 
because humanity and civilization have overcome the bar- 
barism of Christianity. 



CHRISTIANITY. 



179 



But if we have no more bloody persecutions, Christian 
fanaticism has not yet disappeared, but carries on its per- 
secutions in a different manner, as has been seen by the 
outrages committed against the Jews in late years, and in 
the refusal of burials of such persons as belong to different 
sects from those who own the burial-ground. The most 
revolting scenes have occurred on such occasions, and 
Christian fanaticism does not only attack the living but 
also the dead, who are no longer troubled by denomina- 
tional scruples. 

We have given sufficient proof of how Christian fanati- 
cism has destroyed every happiness in the lives of indi- 
viduals and of families. How often has it isown dissent 
between husband and wife, between children and their 
parents, and made fathers and mothers the murderers of 
their children, under the illusion that they were doing an 
act pleasing to God. Many people it has deprived of 
their reason and driven into mad-houses. An examina- 
tion made by Dr. Crowell, of Brooklyn, in 1877, proved 
that in the course of one year, i 1 fifty-eight lunatic asy- 
lums of the United States, four hundred and twelve 
patients had been received who had lost their reason by 
brooding over the Bible and the dogmas of the Church. 
During a certain number of years nineteen hundred and 
ninety-four victims of similar illusions have been sent to 
fill mad-houses. According to a report published in 1880 
by the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane two hun- 
dred and thirty-six patients had been received who had 
lost their reason through the same cause. It has been 
proved beyond contradiction that the so-called religious 
revivals have greatly contributed towards producing reli- 
gious madness. When Moody and Sankey held their 



180 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

revival meetings in the Hippodrome in New York scarcely 
a day passed by that some unfortunate victim had not to 
be sent to an insane asylum. The same observations have 
been made during the revival meetings of Mrs. Van Cott. 
The same has occurred in other places ; for instance, in 
Louisville, Ky., on the occasion of the revival meetings 
of G. O. Barnes, a poor woman, who was the mother of 
twins, completely lost her reason. She had called one of 
her children Jesus Christ, and the other G. O. Barnes. 
She said that Barnes had taught her to make a certain 
"Holy Oil" with which she would heal the sick, that it 
was her task to convert all unbelievers in Louisville, and 
when she had accomplished this she would ascend with 
her children to heaven in a fiery chariot. If so many 
people have lost their reason in brooding over the con- 
tradictions and mystifications of the Bible, and over the 
sophistry which priests have invented to explain them, 
and, in their attempt to reconcile dogmas with reason, we 
cannot wonder that such exercises as those of Moody and 
Sankey considerably increase these mischievous effects. 

If we ask ourselves what is fanaticism, the answer would 
be, fanaticism is a false kind of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm 
is something noble, fanaticism is something ignoble. We 
can only grow enthusiastic over something which we can 
understand, something which we can love and honor; 
whilst fanaticism arises from the dark brooding over 
things that are incomprehensible, things which we cannot 
understand, which we fear, and which drive us to hatred 
and persecution. But the time of hatred and persecution 
will end. That these revivals are at all possible, and that 
they are everywhere received by the priests with open 
arms, is only a proof that the priests, by themselves, can no 



CHRISTIANITY. 181 

longer resist the powerful invasion of constantly increas- 
ing free-thought, and think they have found help in these 
revivals, which really may be compared to the last flaring 
up of a flame before its final extinction. Christianity is 
near its end; mankind has outgrown a doctrine which 
contains so many and such great errors, and it must perish 
to make way for a purer, more sublime, more blissful view 
of God and things divine. 



Belief in Devils and Witcties, SLrxdL 
Su.perstition. 

The well-known Dutch church historian RauwenhofT, 
at the conclusion of the second volume of his work, says : 
" Christian theology really consists of two parts, and it is 
a question of doubt as to which of the two the greatest im- 
portance has been attached, — the belief in God or the 
belief in the devil. Nature and mankind were supposed 
to be subject to one as well as to the other. As God had 
his angels and good spirits to save men, the devil had his 
evil spirits to lead them to destruction. As God filled the 
pious with his spirit and endowed them with miraculous 
power, the devil selected his favorites among men and 
gave them supernatural gifts to do evil and to cause mis- 
chief. The Church made it her task to destroy the work 
of the devil, and carried on war against all who were sup- 
posed to be in alliance with him. The manner in which 
this was done surpasses everything which human cruelty 
has ever perpetrated upon innocent victims. Witchery was 
an extraordinary crime and demanded extraordinary 
means to suppress it, — namely, a suspension of all common 



1 82 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

justice towards those who were suspected of it. No means 
were neglected to procure a conviction of the accused ; 
the most senseless, the most immoral tests were applied to 
decide upon life or death. It is impossible to relate here 
all that was considered suspicious ; indeed, everyth ng was 
tried that could be tried. If once suspicion had fallen 
upon an unfortunate being, the ecclesiastical courts had 
won the game. Torture and imprisonment put the un- 
happy beings into such a state of excitement that they 
confessed even the most senseless things. Girls of eight 
years were forced to admit that they had had carnal inter- 
course with the devil, and had borne children to him. 
Old women admitted that they had killed persons who 
were actually alive and in good health. Any further evi- 
dence that might be wanted was supplied by the helpers 
of the Inquisition, who were always ready to earn blood- 
money by the death of an innocent victim. And in all 
cases the verdict was invariably the same, — the stake. The 
civil authorities not only consented to these horn rs but 
assisted, and did not scruple to receive two-thirds of the 
property of the condemned, which, according to the law 
on witchcraft, belonged to the sovereign. One might feel 
inclined to believe that all this could only be said about 
the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, but truth com- 
pels us to acknowledge that, in this respect, Protestantism 
was by no means behind Catholicism — yes, that with the 
former the superstition was even of a more dogmatic and 
oppressive nature. ' ' 

Catholics and Protestants have taken an equal share in 
this superstition and in the crimes proceeding from it, and 
both must be accused of being guilty. Even to-day the 
belief in devils and witches bears its poisonous blossoms 



CHRISTIANITY. 183 

among the people. Luther carried the belief in the devil, 
in all its brutality, from the Catholie faith into the 
Protestant. He believed that the whole world was peopled 
by a host of angels and demons. Satan plays an important 
part in all his writings. When he is sick he is tormented 
by the devil ; he believes that the devil brought monstrosi- 
ties to women in childbirth, and demanded that this 
devilish brood should be drowned. And as Luther him- 
self believed in the devil, so did also those who followed 
his doctrine. Every extraordinary occurrence in nature, 
every thunder- or hail-storm, every atmospheric phenome- 
non, sickness and pestilence, locusts and vermin, war and 
rebellion, were, according to the belief of the people, works 
of the devil. It is a well-known fact that when Luther 
was detained in the Wartburgh he threw an inkstand at 
the head of the devil, whom he imagined he saw. 

The belief in the devil exists in the Christian Church to 
this day. Christian theology has n t been able to elevate 
itself above this hideous superstition. By most of the 
different sects he is supposed to be the first of the fallen 
angels, and relying upon certain passages in the Bible re- 
ferring to the devil, the Church teaches that God thrust 
him and a host of other angels out of heaven as a punish- 
ment for their crimes. His malice has brought sin, death, 
and every evil into the world. He rules supreme over the 
other fallen angels, and God permits him to tempt man 
and to take possession of him. 

How predominant the belief in the devil still is among 
the people is proved by the circumstance that literature is 
constantly busy with the subject ; even within -the last few 
years a number of books about the devil have been pub- 
lished in France, England, Germany and other countries. 



184 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The belief in witches, and trials x for witchcraft has its 
origin in the Christian belief in a devil. The influence 
of the devil was recognized in certain diseases (being pos- 
sessed of the devil); and the belief in spirits bringing 
disease had gradually developed into the idea that sickness 
was, in many cases, the work of wicked people, gifted 
with supernatural power. This was the origin of the belief 
in witches. It was thought that witches were under the 
immediate influence of the devil and of the host of demons 
which filled the world, and that they were their instru- 
ments to cause evil. When the Church accepted this 
belief, then began those fearful horrors caused by the 
belief in witches and the trials for witchcraft, which for 
centuries have disgraced the world, and which, even 
to-day, have not entirely died out. Terribly, and as a 
pestilence, raged this madness. Infectious, as a plague, 
it visited certain districts and certain towns and demanded 
its victims, which, upon the most contemptible denuncia- 
tion, were tortured, convicted and surrendered to the 
stake. The entire Christian Church, Protestants and 
Catholics, have rivaled with each other to take part in 
these horrors, and to sacrifice thousands of innocent 
people to this fantastic illusion. The entire thought of 
the Christian world was poisoned by this superstition. No 
matter what misfortune happened, what injury or wrong 
was done in any community, it was ascribed to witches. 

The non-Christian world was saved from this pestilence.. 
Neither the Sanscrit nations nor the Parsees know of any 
communion between men and evil spirits, or if they be- 
lieved it, they did not punish it as a crime. This madness 
is known alone to Christian nations, and raged among 
them more terribly and more hideously, and demanded as 



CHRISTIANITY. 185 

many victims as the so-called religious wars and the Inqui- 
sition. The entire Christian Church has taken part in 
these horrors ; not one sect can reproach the other in this 
respect ; all threw themselves with hellish rage and blind 
zeal upon the persecution of the witches. It was Pope 
Innocent VIII. who first declared a union with the devil 
to be a crime, but the Protestants took up the persecution 
of the witches with such zeal, and carried it to such per- 
fection, that Protestantism is responsible before the court 
of reason and humanity; and they have not even the 
excuse of having been carried away in the general tur- 
moil, and to have accepted the Catholic inheritance with- 
out looking at it. 

Let us glance at a few incidents of this persecution 
which are recorded in history. 

More than four hundred witches were tried, and one- 
half of them executed in Carcasonne, in France, from 
1320 to 1350. In 1357 there were thirty-one executions. 

In Toulouse six hundred witches were condemned from 
1330 to 1350. 

The list of the execution of witches and wizards, given 
by Hutchinson, in his work on that subject, must cause 
horror. In the sixteenth century, the State prisons had no 
room to receive those accused of witchcraft. After the 
Bull of Innocent VIII. , in 14S4, which was confirmed by 
Hadrian VI. , in 1523, this devilish persecution was carried 
on wholesale. A certain Cumanus in Burlia, Italy, burnt 
forty-one in one year ; in Piedmont more than one hun- 
dred were executed. In 1515 more than five hundred 
were executed in Geneva within three months. 

In the district of Como, one thousand perished in the 
year 1524. In Ravensburg forty-eight were killed within 



186 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

four years. Remigius burnt nine hundred in Lorraine in 
fifteen years. In Salem, England, sixteen were hanged in 
1692, and one hundred and fifty were imprisoned in the 
same year. The historian Lecky, in his history of witch- 
craft, says: "It is impossible to calculate how many thou- 
sands perished as victims of this illusion." The Bishop 
of Bamberg condemned seven thousand eight hundred in 
one year in Wurzburg. Great numbers perished in every 
large city of France ; one judge boasted that in sixteen 
years he had condemned eight hundred witches. One 
author says that a large number were executed in Paris 
within a few months. 

In the sixteenth century forty-two were executed in Rot- 
weil, and seventy one in the seventeenth century. 

One hundred and fifty-two in Thaun, in the Sundgau, 
from 1572 to 1620. 

Thirty-four from 1579 to 1611, in Fribourg, in the 
Breisgau. 

In the diocese of Treves, under the Bishop John, only 
two persons remained alive in two villages, and three 
hundred and sixty-eight perished in twenty-two other 
villages. 

In 1589 one hundred and thirty-three witches were burnt 
in one day in Quedlinburg. 

From 1590 to 1600 from ten to twelve witches were 
burned on many days in the Duchy of Brunswick; the 
stakes outside the city looked almost like a forest. 

In Ellingen, sixty-five were burnt in 1590 within eight 
months. 

In Wiesenburg, twenty-five. 

In Noerdlingen, thirty-two. 

In Ingelfingen, thirteen. 



CHRISTIANITY. 187 

In the Canton of Berne three hundred and eleven were 
burnt from 1591 to 1600, from 1601 to 1610 two hundred 
and forty, sixty in 161 3 and seventy-five in 161 6. 

Twenty-three in 1596 in Windsheim. 

In Muttich and Amerbach, in the diocese of Mayence, 
three hundred were burned in 1602. 

In December, 1608, several women were burnt in 
Broughton, Scotland ; some of them attempted to escape 
from the flames, but were seized and thrown back. 

In Chillon, twenty-seven in four months in 1613. 

From 161 5 to 1635 more than five thousand were burned 
in the diocese of Strassburg. 

In Wurzburg, more than two hundred perished from 
1622 to 1629. According to another report nine hundred. 

Six hundred in the diocese of Bamberg, from 1625 to 
1659. 

Thirty-six in Drieburg in 1627. Another report says 
eighty-five. 

In the same year three hundred in Gross-Krotzenburg 
and Briergel. 

In Wurzburg one hundred and fifty-seven from 1627 to 
1629. 

In Offenburg sixty from 1627 to 1631. 

In Schlettstadt seventy-two from 1629 to 1632. 

In Briedingen sixty-four in 1633, and fifty in 1634. 

Nine hundred women suffered death for witchcraft in 
Lorraine in the seventeenth century. 

From 1640 until the Restoration from three to four 
thousand people perished in Great Britain for witchcraft. 
Addy estimates the number of those executed in Scotland 
alone at several thousand. 

Thirty were burned in Lindheim between 1640 and 1651. 



188 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Trials for witchcraft in America date from 1645, and 
appeared first in Connecticut and in 'Boston, where three 
women were executed during that year. One woman was 
executed in Boston in 1655, another in Hadley in 1662. 
For thirty years no executions took place, until the perse- 
cution broke out again in 1685 in the neighborhood of 
Boston, in isolated cases, until in Salem it appeared like 
an epidemic. From February to Jute, 1692, the prisons 
were overcrowded with the accused, and in June, July and 
August, a great number of women were condemned and 
executed. The rage of persecution increased day by day, 
and it is impossible to say how many people fell victims to 
this miserable superstition. At last the people came to 
their senses and seemed to discover how gravely they had 
sinned. On January 14th, 1696, a general day of fasting 
and humiliation was observed, to pray to God for forgive- 
ness for these horrors. The originators of all the terrible 
crimes were Christian and Puritan ministers, the same who 
to this day take a leading position in the United States, 
and, in their Christian pride and bigotry, look down with 
contempt on every one who does not share their opinion, 
and who try by all possible means to impede intellectual 
progress and lend a willing hand to enslave public opinion 
and personal liberty. 

In 1627 the daughter of the postmaster, Enoch, in 
Cologne, after being put on the rack three times, had to 
ascend the stake. She had been accused by the nuns of 
St. Clara, who were supposed to be possessed by the devil, 
to have been guilty of witchcraft. 

In 1 65 1 forty-two women were burned in Neisse. 

About one thousand people were burnt in Franconia in 
1659, particularly in the dioceses of Wurzburg and Bamberg. 



CHRISTIANITY. 189 

Twenty-four people in 1665 in the Vaudois. 

Seventy-two women and fifteen children in Mora, Swe- 
den, in 1669. 

In Northampton, England, two women were hanged in 
1705, and five in 171 2. 

Thirteen witches were burned in 1728 in Szegedin, 
Hungary. 

The sub-prioress of the Convent of Unterzell, Renata 
Sieger, was burnt in Wurzburg in 1729. 

In 1737 a weak-minded w .man named Catharine Kal- 
bacher accused, at the request of a Jesuit priest, in Lu- 
cerne, the seventy-year old Lisi Bossard and her four 
daughters, also Catharine Gilli, Max Stadlin, with his wife 
and daughter, and seven other people of witchcraft. The 
old woman Bossard and her daughters, and the woman 
Stadlin, after having been tortured with red-hot tongs, 
were burned. 

A fourteen-year old girl was burned in Landshut in 
1756 ; she was accused of having been the cause of a vio- 
lent thunder-storm. 

A girl of thirteen years was executed in Landshut in 

1754. 

In 1782 Anna Goldin was beheaded in Glarus. 

The preceding list, which goes down to the end of the 
eighteenth century, gives only a very imperfect picture 
of all the horrors which have been committed during the 
persecution of witches, and we may get a still better idea 
from a consideration of the following : 

The blood-judge Balzer Voss, in Fulda, boasted that 
he alone had burned seven hundred witches, and he hoped 
to bring it to a thousand. The blood-judge Benedict 
Karpzow (1648-50) boasted that he had signed about 



igo THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

twenty thousand death warrants. The town-clerk Voigt, 
of Quedlinbur.*, wrote ^n a Berlin magazine of 1784 that 
a rough estimate of the number of victims who were sacri- 
ficed to this superstition would amount to about one mil- 
lion; Dr. Niehus, in Munster, estimates the number at 
from three to four millions ; another historian goes as far 
as nine millions. The wholesale persecution, as has been 
shown above, was by no means confined to Germany. 
It occurred at an earlier date in France ; and in Switz- 
erland, Italy, Spain, England, Sweden, Denmark, the 
Netherlands and America this moral pestilence raged with 
equal fury. 

In our enlightened nineteenth century, even within the 
last years, this superstition has found its victims. 

In 181 9 three women strangled a woman, Miszewska, 
whom they declared to be a witch, near Jastrzembic. 

In 1830, in the south of France, a mob seized an old 
woman whom they accused of having poisoned the cattle. 
To force her to cure the beasts she was held over a fire 
until she was tormented to death. 

In 1836 a woman was drowned as a witch in Zeinova on 
the peninsula of Hela. 

In 1850 a suit was brought in Tarbes, in France, against 
a married couple, Soubervie, for the murder of a woman, — 
Bedouret. They had taken this woman, whom a priest 
had pointed out as a witch who was supposed to have 
caused the sickness of Mme. Soubervie, and held her over 
burning straw, and put a red-hot iron on her mouth, and 
thus tormented her to death. The murderers were con- 
demned to four months' imprisonment, and an annual 
payment of twenty-five francs to the husband of the mur- 
dered woman. 



CHRISTIANITY. 191 

In i860 a woman was burned as a witch in Carnargo, 
Mexico. 

In 1 366 a young lady was arrested as a witch in the 
Rhenish province of Prussia, because she kept a tame 
pigeon. 

In 1868, in the same province, a weaver, whose child 
was suffering from spasms, tried to shoot an old woman, 
whom he suspected of having bewitched the child. The 
gun missed fire, and this very fact strengthened his idea 
that the woman was a witch. 

In June, 1868, a trial for witchcraft took place in Zis- 
tersdorf, Austria. 

In 1874, in Aix-la-Chapelle, a woman was accused of 
witchcraft; another in Munchen-Gladbach, and another 
in Viersen, all in the Rhine province. Another trial for 
witchcraft took place in the same year in Zweibrucken. 

On May 7tri, 1874, Diega Luzo and her son, and Jose 
Bonitta and his wife were burnt as witches and sorcerers 
in St. Sinalva, Mexico. 

In the same year a similar crime was committed in Ala- 
menca, Peru. On the 16th of August the Christian In- 
dians celebrated the Feast of the Ascension of Mary, and 
with their justice of the peace at their head they deter- 
mined to enhance the festivities of the day by roasting 
over a slow fire an unfortunate man, Mariano Surcamay, 
who was suspected of sorcery. They tied him to a post 
and pihd wood around him, to which they set fire. When 
the flames leaped forth the whole company went to the 
house of the justice of the peace to celebrate their heroic 
deed. Two hours afterwards the host reminded his guests 
that wizards were not easily killed ; they would go and see 
if he was still alive. Indeed, the unfortunate man was not 



l 9 2 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

yet dead. Then the judge himself took a knife and cut 
off his head, with the words, "He shall not escape this 
time,'' and he ordered the remaining part of the body to 
be thrown to the dogs. 

In 1875 tne w if e °f a ma yor in Upper Alsace, who, at 
the same time, was a deputy to the local diet, grew very 
sick. He thought that she was bewitched, and, instead 
of calling in a physician, he consulted a conjuror, who, in 
conjunction with a nine days' devotional service, was to 
cure her. On the 4th of April, 1875, a case was tried 
before the police court of Aix-la-Chapelle about a be- 
witched cow. The cow was healed again by certain 
proceedings in which sacred objects and a priest played 
the principal part. 

In Warwickshire, England, in 1875, a certain Haywood 
killed an old woman whom he declared to be a witch. 
During the examination of the witnesses it was discovered 
that about one-third of the population believed in witches, 
and that they were of the opinion that fourteen other 
witches were living in the village. 

In New Albany, Indiana, in 1877, attention was called 
to a Mrs. Zeller, who declared that sick persons had been 
bewitched, and who pretended to be able to cure them. 
She had found a number of people who believed in her, 
and things went so far that certain houses were avoided 
because it was believed the inhabitants were bewitched. 
A baker, Meisenhelder, refused to serve bread to certain 
people whom he declared to be bewitched. 

A Dutch family residing in Paterson, New Jersey, in 
1878, accused an old woman of having bewitched two of the 
daughters. One of them had been bewitched some months 
ago, but had been exorcised by a Catholic priest. 



CHRISTIANITY. 193 

In 1879 a woman was burned as a witch in the Russian 
village Wratschewo. The authorities of the village had 
the doors and windows of her house nailed up ; they sur- 
rounded it with wood and straw, and set fire to it to burn 
the witch and her house. The village priest was present 
at this outrage. 

In St. Blazery, England, a woman died in 1880 who 
had been accused of witchcraft, and nobody could be 
found who would assist in burying her. At last two work- 
men offered to carry her to the church >ard. The belief 
that she was a witch was so firmly rooted among the people 
that the whole village breathed more freely after her death, 
and a poor cripple who thought that he had been bewitched 
by her imagined that he would now get well. 

In February, 1880, a woman was burnt by her neigh- 
bors in the Government of Novgorod, Russia. They ac- 
cused her of having bewitched their cattle and their chil- 
dren. The criminals were acquitted because it was said 
in II. Moses, xxii. 18, that it was right to kill a witch. 

In Stangenwalde, a village in the neighborhood of 
Dantzic, lived a woman who was considered a witch by the 
whole neighborhood. In September, 1881, a woman 
living in the same village returned with a lame horse from 
the market. Just before the house in which the alleged 
witch lived the overtired animal stopped and refused to 
go further. This of course was the fault of the witch ; 
and the woman, her husband and her mother in-law en- 
tered the house, pulled the witch out of her bed and ill- 
used her, to force her to cure the horse. The tormented 
woman called for help and alarmed the neighbors. A 
number of people surrounded the woman and her tor- 
mentors, but not to protect her, but to sneer at her and 

13 



i 9 4 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

abuse her still more. One had gone to get a razor to open 
her veins, and one had put a rope around her neck, when 
a physician, who was passing by, delivered her from her 
tormentors. 

A trial for witchcraft took place in Elbing, Prussia, in 
January, 1881. A shoemaker named Kottlewski, accused 
a woman of bewitching the sick daughter of a neighbor, 
and, as the attempt to drive out the devil was not success- 
ful, on the first of October Kottlewski entered the house 
of the witch with the words: "Praised be Jesus Christ," 
and asked the woman to heal the child. When she de- 
clared that she could not do this, and that she had not 
bewitched the girl, Kottlewski abused her in the most brutal 
manner. 

In AschafTenburg there liyed, in 1881, a married couple 
who possessed two little pigs, both of which died. This 
of course must have been done by witchcraft, and they 
accused one of their neighbors of having bewitched the 
animals. Their suit was of course dismissed, but the 
plaintiffs were not satisfied with this and appealed to a 
higher court, as in their opinion it was not possible that 
such a just cause could be lost. 

A cattle disease broke out in Hungary in 1882. Of 
course this was done by witchcraft. The whole village 
went to the church-yard and disinterred the bodies of an 
old woman and an old man, whom the watchman pretended 
to have seen leave their graves every night. On the next 
day they all went again, accompanied by the priest, the 
schoolmaster and the justice, and disinterred the body of 
the village cowherd, who had only recently died. The 
body was burned after the heart had been taken out, where- 
upon the priest performed a co secration. 



CHRISTIANITY. 195 

In 1883 a little child became sick, in Forup, Germany, 
and the mother pretended that the child had been bewitched. 
To drive out the evil spirit they made a large coal fire and 
held the child over it until the spirit had departed, that is 
to say, until it was dead. 

About three years ago, a little child fell sick in Schoene- 
beck, Prussia. The father took it into his head that the 
child had been bewitched by a woman from whom, from 
time to time, it had received apples and pe rs, and that 
the child could only be cured by drinking the blood of the 
woman. The woman was waylaid and compelled to have 
blood drawn from her, which was given to the sick child. 

The following case occurred in Bay City, Michigan, in 
1883. Dr. Bratenburg assured the mother of a sick child 
that she had been bewitched before its birth, and that the 
spell, descending to the little one, could not be removed 
for less than seven dollars. After getting the money he 
wrote on a sheet of paper, folded it triangularly, enclosed 
it in a bag and hung it around the child's neck. Death 
ensued in consequence of medical neglect. The manu- 
script was found to be as follows : "William John Warner 
will regain his health in the name of the Lord, God Father, 
God Son, and God Holy Ghost, Amen. * * * I. N. 
* * N. I. * Beelzebub and all the bad spirits, I for- 
bid you my bedstead in the name of God, my house and 
also my yard. I forbid you, in the name of the Holy 
Trinity, my blood and flesh, my body and soul. I forbid 
you, as many times as we have nail-holes in my house, as 
many times as drops in the water, as many times as leaves 
on the trees, as many times as stars in the heavens, until 
the last day of Judgment arrives, and Mary, the mother of 
God, gives birth to her second son. In the name of God 



196 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Father, God Son, and God Holy Ghost, thou arch-fiend, 
thou hast taken hold of our William John. Go hence, I 
beseech you, for the sake of the five wounds of Jesus Christ, 
go out this very hour." 

As late as January 6th, 1884, a case of exorcism occurred 
in Switzerland, the party in which the devil was said to 
have taken up his abode being an eighteen-year old girl, who 
lived in Hemberg, in the canton of St. Gallen. The priest 
vigorously attacked his devilship, making use of holy water 
as well as of other means of conjuration, and succeeded 
so well that not only the "devil" but life itself left the 
body of the poor girl. 

These dates, which come down to the latest times, give 
the humiliating proof that even to-day the belief in witches 
has not disappeared. And if the words of the Bible, in 
II. Moses, xxii. 18, — "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to 
live," upon which the persecutions of former centuries 
were based, are considered as authority, we find that to-day 
among the uneducated the belief in witches, with all its 
stupidity and brutality, is still in existence. In Tyrol it is 
the custom to this day to burn them out in the Walpurgis 
Night; in the Palatinate they are whipped out, in Franconia 
they are driven out with trumpets. The idea that sickness 
can be healed by sorcery and driving out of evil spirits has 
by no means died out. 

By the side of the belief in witches and devils we meet, 
in the life of Christian nations, a third kind of mental 
aberration, which, if it has not caused so much bloodshed 
as the first two, has worked, and is still working, a great 
deal of mischief, — namely, superstition. 

Frederick the Great called superstition a child of fear, 
of weakness, and of indecision. This is true, but it is not 



CHRISTIANITY. 197 

exhaustive. The root of the evil lies deeper. Superstition 
L the child of a belief in miracles, for it presupposes 
supernatural effects, which are contradictory to the laws 
of nature. The belief in the alleged miracles of Christi- 
anity is the root of superstition. Both superstition and 
the belief in dogmas and miracles are twin brothers. 
Every superstition is a belief in miracles, for it is based 
upon an arbitary violation of natural laws by supernatural 
powers, and in its different directions it follows a tendency 
to use the miracle for worldly purposes. As by the belief 
in dogmas the spirit is shrouded in darkness, so that it 
loses the liberty of independent thought, the same effect 
is produced by superstition. Let us consider only a few 
instances of specifically Christian superstition. First, that 
Friday is a day of ill luck, and, secondly, that when 
thirteen sit down to a meal one of them must die in the 
course of a year. 

The superstition that Friday is a day of ill luck origi- 
nates in the legend that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. 
The seaman will not start on a voyage on a Friday, the 
builder will not sign a contract or begin a building, the 
man of business will not set out on a journey, and the 
farmer will not sow his seed on a Friday. How can the 
circumstance that Jesus was crucified nineteen hundred 
years ago on a Friday have any effect upon the voyage of 
the sailor, the building of the architect, the journey of a 
business man, or the seed of the farmer? Where are here 
cause and effect ? And yet an effect is impossible without 
a cause. Will the sailor suffer shipwreck, will the build- 
ing fall down, will the man of business be unsuccessful or 
meet with an accident because Jesus was crucified on a 
Friday nineteen hundred years ago? Indeed, he who 



198 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

believes in such things gives terrible evidence of a weak 
mind. 

As to the superstition of thirteen sitting down at a 
meal, — namely, that one of them will die within the year, 
— it is as foolish as the other. Does the life of man de- 
pend upon such accidents? What influence can the cir- 
cumstance that Jesus, just before his death, sat down to a 
meal with his twelve apostles have upon the life of a man 
who to-day, after nineteen hundred years, sits down to a 
meal with twelve other persons ? Where, again, are cause 
and effect ? And yet we find this contemptible superstition 
not only among the uneducated but also among people of 
the so-called educated classes. Indeed, it is painful to see 
how the lady of the house, if by an accident thirteen 
should sit down to a meal, will torment herself how to get 
over this terrible thing. It is humiliating to witness such 
a thing among educated people, and one can only be 
astonished to see educated women exposing themselves by 
such miserable superstition. There exist many other kinds 
of superstition to which women, who are regular church 
attendants, still adhere. What shall we think when we 
enter a*house and find a lady trying to read her fortune in 
cards, or when we see them in elegant carriages drive to 
the house of a fortune-teller? These are incidents of which 
the nineteenth century ought to be ashamed, and all c f 
which have their origin in the want of true religion. 

Can there be any greater testimony of superstition than 
the worship of saints — the belief that in certain affairs of 
life we ought to address ourselves to certain saints? St. 
Aja is to help in lawsuits ; St. Cyprian cures the gout ; 
St. Roch, pestilence ; St. Benedict, poison ; St. Florian 
helps us in danger from fire ; St. Ulrich keeps rats and 






CHRISTIANITY. 199 

mice away ; St. Blaize cures sore throats ; St. Appollonia 
cures toothache, unless it proceeds from a state of preg- 
nancy, in which case people have to address themselves to 
St. Margaret, who also helps women through the labors of 
childbirth; St. Valentine cures epilepsy; St. Nepomuk 
prevents inundations and also slander; St. Lucy cures eye 
diseases ; St. Petronella, the fever ; St. Hubert, hydro- 
phobia ; St. Leonard, cattle disease, etc. 

Superstition shows itself in many other cases. It is be- 
lieved that one can make a mortal enemy fall sick, or even 
kill him, by singing for three consecutive Sundays spirit- 
ual songs and one of the anathemas behind the altar of 
the church, or by sacrificing something on the altar or 
singing a certain spiritual song for a whole year, mornings 
and evenings. Is it possible to imagine that by singing 
and praying we can harm a fellow-creature ? What a terri- 
ble illusion ! Voudooism is still practiced to this day in 
the highest circle of white society in New Orleans. The 
Lithuanians ask of their Evangelical priests to pray that 
their enemies may be struck by sickness ; in cases of sick- 
ness in their own family, they ask for a few drops of the 
communion wine, or they ask for the cup with which they 
go into the church and murmur some prayers into it. 
Dr. Mannhardt, who relates this in his work on supersti- 
tion, says that he could name several ministers who, with- 
out scruple, have granted such requests. We see that the ' 
priest assists in perpetuating the evils of superstition. 

The belief in the healing powers of the water of Lourdes 
and other places is also encouraged by priests, who de- 
rive certain advantages from it. The healing by relics 
and consecrated amulets, which are supposed to protect 
from sickness and danger, belongs to the same class ; and 



2oo THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

what can we think, when in New York, in 1878, the Rev. 
McArthur preached from his pulpit that believing Chris- 
tians were exempt from certain fevers and from sunstroke? 
And what shall we say when, even in February, 1883, in 
the churches of St. Aloysius and of St. Joseph, a conse- 
cration of throats took place ? What is that? our readers 
will ask. This consecration of throats was to protect the 
faithful from diphtheria and other diseases of the throat. 

It is painful to see that just those whose vocation it is to 
open men's eyes, and to hold before them the torch of 
truth, that those who declare themselves to be filled with 
the holy spirit, do so much mischief and degrade them- 
selves in upholding superstition, partly from their own 
want of intellect, partly to maintain and fortify their own 
dangerous and hurtful power. 



Christianity, after an existence of nearly two thousand 
years, has not been able to shake off this superstition. A 
creed which has not been able to do this gives the strongest 
proof of its weakness ; and the creed which teaches dogmas 
which are opposed to reason and to the laws of nature, 
causes, among other evils, falsehood and hypocrisy ; for, 
unfortunately, there are not many people who have the 
courage to oppose publicly such opinions as are against 
their conscience. Such people assume an outward ap- 
pearance of belief; they observe the rites of the Church, 
have their children baptized, go to confession and com- 
munion, and consider everything merely as ceremonies. 
They appear to be believers, but, in truth, they have no 
faith in the doctrines of the Church . They follow the 
routine from mere habit or out of regard for their friends 



CHRISTIANITY. iol 

or worldly and pecuniary advantages. How many such 
people are there not in the world ? 

The influence upon youth of a church which places 
morality beneath dogmatism is most injurious. Young 
people are instructed in the dogmas of the Church, but 
the more enlightened cannot find satisfaction in them, nor 
can they gain moral strength and refreshment from them. 

When the. young man or the maiden reaches the age 
when passions awake in them, they reject the belief in one 
Supreme God, together with Christian dogmatism, because 
they think Christianity and religion are one and the same 
thing; and there they stand for the rest of their lives, 
without a guide and without a home, just at the time when 
they are most in need of a firm support. 

We often hear from a Christian pulpit, and lead in 
Christian publications, that the respect for the Church and 
the attendance at church are decreasing. Can we wonder 
at this in a century when free thought and scientific in- 
quiry have progressed as never before ? But it is impossi- 
ble to bring reflection and inquiry into harmony with a 
belief in miracles and dogmas. 

Let us add to this that the Christian Church teaches its 
followers that this world is a vale of tears, that our body 
is a prison and our souls are longing for delivery from it. 
But our earth, which offers so much that is beautiful, joy- 
ful, and blissful, is not a vale of tears, but the home of 
joy which God has given us to rejoice in and be happy. 
The entire ritual of the Christian Church, which speaks 
of nothing but sin, damnation, and redemption, must give 
a sad tone to all our life, and it oppresses us. True and 
living religion will make man cheerful and encourage him 
in a blissful looking up to God. 



202 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

We hear of orthodox and of liberal Christians, and 
many church attendants desire to be considered as belong- 
ing to the latter class. But this is only self deception. 
Christianity does not recognize different degrees among 
its followers, but demands positive belief in all its dogmas 
without exception ; and only he who blindly believes in 
all these dogmas, without reserve, without individual opin- 
ion, can claim to be called a Christian ; while every one 
who does not believe so has actually ceased to belong to 
the Christian Church. Even those sects which do not 
recognize either one or the other of the dogmas, do not 
in reality belong to the Christian Church. 

The Christian Church advises her followers to take upon 
themselves the cross of Christ, the real meaning of which 
cannot easily be discovered. But would it not be better 
and more according to the intentions of Jesus If the 
Church commanded her followers, instead of taking upon 
themselves the cross of Christ, to take into their hearts 
Jesus' love for mankind ? That would be a simple, truly 
blissful, strengthening doctrine. Then Christianity would 
not look proudly down upon those who believe differently, 
and would have peace within itself, whilst now it is the 
abode of eternal dissent, and by its pride and persecution 
it repulses others. 

The symbol of the cross occupies an important place 
in Christianity. It is seen not only on the outside of 
churches, but also in the interior, and in private houses, 
and even, as an ornament, is worn by women. What is 
the meaning of the cross? It is to symbolize the cruci- 
fixion of Jesus; but is it not an aberration of human senti- 
ment when it places before the feverish phantasy the 
blood-stained picture of the martyrdom of a sublime man? 



CHRISTIANITY. 203 

And can the view of this terrible picture of the agony of 
death elevate us to prayer ? Is such an aspect, and the 
ideas connected with it, qualified to elevate our mind, to 
give us blissful buoyancy? And how does this represen- 
tation of the dying Jesus agree with the words of the Bible : 
"You shall not make an image of me," as Christianity 
worships in Jesus the Son of God, God himself? And we 
should not forget that this same cross has been lifted up 
as a symbol in all the bloodthirsty persecutions of which 
Christianity is guilty, in direct contradiction of Jesus' 
doctrine of love. Christians throw themselves on their 
knees before the crucifix, and worship an image made by 
man, and think to do thereby a God-pleasing action. 
They are not better than the heathens who worship idols, 
and their worship is the worship of idols. 

Christianity has only given other forms to idol-worship. 
For instance, what else is the "adoration of the mon- 
strance," which in Spain and other countries is called 
"the Lord God" or "the Majesty"? And is the worship 
of the Virgin Mary, " the mother of God," and the adora- 
tion of saints aught but idol-worship ? And is it not idol- 
worship when, on Maundy-Thursday, at the consecration 
of the so-called holy oil, the priest kneels down before 
the vessel containing this oil, and, worshiping it, sings : 
"Hail, Blessed Oil"? 

The sublime man Jesus is indeed worthy that his image 
should be seen everywhere, but not in the horrifying scene 
of martyrdom and execution. If you wish to represent 
him, you should show him surrounded by children and 
blessing them, symbolizing his saying, "Let little chil- 
dren come unto me." That would be an image which 
would represent him worthily, and upon which we could 



204 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

look every moment with genuine and elevating joy. What 
shall we finally say about the worship of relics in the Chris- 
tian Church? The Buddhists preserve a tooth of Buddha 
and an imprint of his foot ; the Mohammedans have the 
cloak and slippers of their prophet, and the hair of his 
beard ; but the Christian Church has gone much further. 
There are the milk of the mother of Jesus, the blood of St. 
January in Naples, and in the Treasury of the Crown of 
France there are the swaddling-clothes of Jesus, the veil 
of Mary and the shroud of John. In a church in Brabant 
there are the cannon-balls which Mary caught in her 
apron ; there are the tears which Jesus wept at the grave 
of Lazarus ; there are three different skulls which are sup- 
posed to belong to John the Baptist ; there are hundreds 
of swaddling-clothes supposed to be those of Jesus, and 
as many dresses of his mother ; also pieces of wood of the 
most different kinds coming from the Cross, which would 
make a cross as high as a house. The skulls of the three 
wise men of the east are at Milan and also at Cologne ; 
innumerable nails which are said to have been used at the 
crucifixion, an impression of Jesus' face in a sweat-cloth, 
thorns of his crown with spots of his blood upon them ; 
and there is a nunnery in France which boasts of possess- 
ing a part of the body of Jesus which, in a book intended 
for women to read, cannot be more precisely described. 

All this is Christianity, all this is offered to Christian 
people as true religion ! 



CHRISTIANITY. 205 

Has Christianity Made Mankind 
Better? 



If we wish to form a just and impartial opinion on any 
social or religious institutions, we must inquire, in the first 
place, after the results which they have achieved. We 
find an unequivocal reply in two positive sciences, — his- 
tory and statistics. What we have said about the horrors 
of the wars carried on in the name of Christianity, about 
the Inquisition, the trials for witchcraft, fanaticism, and 
other events, are historical data. Statistics tell us whether 
crimes have increased or decreased, and we will here give 
the following data : . 

In Europe, excluding Turkey, more than ten thousand 
murder$ are committed annually, not counting the 
slaughter in warfare, which is also nothing else but 
murder. 

In England the number of murders has increased from 
1830 to 1859 at the following ratio: 1830-34, 931; 
l8 35-39> io 54; 1840-44, i5 4; 1845-49, 153S j 1850-54, 
1597; 1855-59, 1850. The number of murders has in- 
creased during these twenty-nine years by nearly one hun- 
dred per cent., that of the population by only 40.5 per 
cent. 

In France parricides and poisoning have doubled from 
1882 to 1883. 

In the eight old provinces of Prussia, misdemeanors and 
crimes increased, from 1871 to 1877, fro m 88,233 to 
J 45>587. From 1871 to 1875 tne population of these 
provinces increased by 4.68 per cent., whilst the number 
of misdemeanors and crimes from 1871 to 1876 increased 
by 51.6 per cent. 



206 THE COMING CREED- OF THE WORLD. 

In Saxony the increase of population from 1871 to 1875 
was 7.4 per cent., whilst the number of crimes and mis- 
demeanors from 187 1 to 1877 increased by 70.4 per cent. 

In Bavaria the population increased from 187 1 to 1875 
by only 3.3 per cent., but crimes and misdemeanors, from 
1872 to 1877, by 67.5 per cent. 

In Wurtemberg the increase of population from 187 1 
to 1875 was also 3.3 per cent, only; the increase of crimes 
and misdemeanors from 1872 to 1877 was 83.5 per cent. 
The population of Hamburg increased from 187 1 to 1875 
by 14.6 per cent.; the increase of crimes and misde- 
meanors from 1872 to 1877 was 113 per cent. In France 
the number of crimes from 1878 to. 1880 increased by 
thirty-eight per cent. In Italy, during the first nine 
months of 1878, there occurred 2900 cases of murder and 
attempts at murder, 1900 cases of highway robbery; and 
in the one month of April, 1881, 141 murders, no 
attempts at murder, 150 highway robberies, 30 attempts 
at extorting money by violence, and 4812 cases of larceny 
were registered. 

In the United States the number of crimes increased 
from 1871 to 1878 from 16,000 to 31,000. In Massachusetts 
offences against morality numbered 583 from 1866 to 
1869; in the years 1876 to 1879 tnev increased to 1537; 
from 1866 to 1869 the number of illegitimate births 
amounted to 1624; from 1876 to 1879 they had increased 
to 2766. The State of Maine, according to the report 
of Col. Potter, showed the following percentage : The 
increase of crime from 1851 to 1880, 425 for murders, 400 
for homicides, 133 for attempts at murder, 125 for cases 
of arson, 800 for cases of rape. In the State of New 
York the criminal classes show an increase of fifty- three 



CHRISTIANITY. 207 

per cent, during the last ten years, whilst the population 
has increased at the rate of only twenty-three per cent, 
during the same space of time. 

Cases of suicide increased in England, from 1857 to 
1869, as follows: 1857-58, 1312; 1859-60, 1302; 1861-62, 
1304; 1863-64, 1361; 1865-66, 1379; 1867-68, 1451; 
1869, 1562. 

In Prussia the suicides increased as follows: 1850, 
1736; i860, 2105; 1871, 2723; 1872, 2850; 1873, 2 9 26 i 
i874,3 75; 1875,3278; 1876,3917; 1878,4689. 

In Berlin there oc urred, from 1788 to 1797, only 35 
cases of "suicide. At present the average is 250 a year, 
2500 in ten years. 

In Saxony the cases of suicide increased as follows: 
1850, 390; i860, 548; 1870, 657; 1878, 1126. 

In Bavaria the cases of suicide increased as follows: 
1850, 250; i860, 339; 1870, 450; 1877, 650. 

In France the cases of suicide increased as follows: 
1826-30, 1739; 1831-35, 2263; 1836-40, 2574; 1841-45, 
2951; 1846-50, 3446; 1851-55, 3639; 1856-60, 4002; 
1861-65, 4700; 1866-70, 4989; 1871-75, 5256; 1881, 
6650; 1883, 7213. 

The statistician Morselli gives, in his work on suicide, 
the following ratio of increase from 1820 to 1876 in the 
following countries: Prussia, 190 per cent. ; Saxony, 190; 
Bavaria, 187; Wurtemberg, 168; Baden, 244; Mecklen- 
burg, 265; Hanover, 171; German Austria, 530; France, 
268; Denmark, 131; England, 118; Belgium, 208; and 
Italy, 140. 

For the whole of Europe the increase was from 20,208 
in 1875 to 24,910 in 1878; 110,000 suicides were com- 
mitted from 1873 t0 1878. 



208 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

We have no reliable data as to the increase of perjury ; 
but the following report about cases of perjury which in 
the following countries occur annually, for 1,000,000 in- 
habitants, gives also, in this respect, mcst deplorable 
results: Saxony, 300; Denmark, 280; Wurtemberg, 180; 
Mecklenburg, 167; Bacen, 156; Prussia, 133; Austria, 
122 j Bavaria, 103; Sweden, 81; Belgium, 73; Norway, 
40. In Gustrow, in Mecklenburg, five persons were tried 
for perjury in one day. 

The Secretary of the Interior of the United States, in 
1879, revealed a terrible picture as to the frequency of 
cases of perjury in the United States. " During the last 
three years the names of five hundred persons were struck 
off the pension list who had obtained their pension by 
fraud and deception. The requests of these 500 people 
were accompanied by statements, upon oath, of 4937 peo- 
ple, an overwhelming majority of whom had committed 
perjury." 

Prostitution shows the following increase : In 1 845 there 
were in Berlin 600 registered prostitutes ; in 187 1, 15,064. 
In Paris, from 8000 in 1840 to 120,000 in 1870. 

Divorces do not number among crimes, but as they 
serve as a means of judging the state of morality, and as 
the number of cases of divorce is really a very terrifying 
one, the following facts will not be considered inopportune : 
One hundred and twenty-six cases were pleaded in Bos- 
ton in 1882, before one judge only; and in May, 1880, 
201 cases of divorce came before the Supreme Court in 
Boston. Altogether 7233 marriages have been dissolved 
in Massachusetts since i860. In Connecticut 332 divorces 
were granted in 1880; 1003 marriages were dissolved in 
Ohio in 1870, and since then the number has increased 



CHRISTIANITY. 209 

in proportion to the increase of the population 80 per 
cent. In September, 1882, 74 petitions for dissolution of 
marriage were sent into one court of law in Philadelphia, 
and 83 in November, 1882. Two hundred and forty mar- 
riages were dissolved in the State of Maine from 1878 to 
1882. 

In his last annual message Governor Bourn, of Rhode 
Island, mentioned that, in the year 1882, there was one 
di.orce to every 9.7 marriages, and that during the ten 
years ending on December 31, 1882, 2824 actions for di- 
vorce had been brought in the Rhode Island courts. Rev. 
Dr. Nutting, of Fall River, Mass., lately preached a ser- 
mon on the subject of divorce, in the course of which he 
said: " In 1878 there was one divorce to every nine mar- 
riages in Rhode Island, and in Connecticut one divorce 
to every eight marriages. In the ' Western Reserve ' 
counties of Ohio, where the population element of New 
England forms a larger percentage than even in the New 
England States, matters in this respect are still a great 
deal worse'. There are two divorces in that part of Ohio, 
where there is only one in the other parts of the State, 
and Lake County, a Yankee settlement, is the worst of 
all. There one divorce occurs in every six marriages. 
Wherever parties hailing from the New England States 
may settle, they soon become notorious by reason of their 
leading a bad family life, and from the fact that they 
forcibly curtail the increase of their families. Among the 
Yankee population the rates of births have decreased in 
the same manner during the last twenty-five years in 
which the divorces have increased." 

In the County Court of Milwaukee 160 divorce suits 
were pleaded in 1881. During one law term 120 divorce 

14 



210 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

cases came before the Supreme Court in Rhode Island. 
In Vermont there is one divorce to 16 marriages. Since 
i860 divorces in Massachusetts have increased at the rate 
of 147 per cent., while the marriages show an increase of 
only 4 per cent. In France 2613 divorces were granted 
from 1863 to 1867; 3277 in the year 1879 alone. 

We may mention here that in August, 1882, in 
Gross-Becskerek, in Hungary, 60 married women had 
poisoned their husbands ; 35 of them have already been 
condemned ; the proceedings against the others have not 
yet been decided. 

Infanticide increased four-fold in Paris from 1826 to 
1846. According to the report of the coroners of London, 
the annual number of child murders alone amounts to 
12,000. (?) From 1877 to 1881, 1894 dead bodies were 
found in the Thames. 

Crimes against morality , rape, etc., have increased at an 
alarming rate in every country of Europe, and are still in- 
creasing. 

In the eight old provinces of Prussia the population in- 
creased from 187 1 to 1875 by 4.68 per cent., the number 
of recorded crimes and misdemeanors by 51.6, as follows: 
1871, 8S } 2 33 ; 1872, 102,077; 1873, 104,878; 1874, 
120,900; 1875, i 33j734- Here, in the United States, 
we cannot take a newspaper in our hands without reading 
reports of murders, suicides and crimes of every kind, and 
this in a country where there are more Christian churches, 
and where the priests exercise a greater influence than in 
any other country. The above numbers give a terrible 
picture, and describe a state of society which must fill the 
heart of every righteous man with sadness. Murder, 
suicides, perjury and crimes of all kinds everywhere, and 



CHRISTIANITY. 211 

increasing from year to year at a terrible rate. The 
prisons are overcrowded by offenders of every kind, and 
the madhouses cannot hold the number of those of dis- 
eased mind. In Ohio, on May 1, 1883, 1060 madmen 
were confined in poorhouses and prisons because there 
was no room for them in the five great asylums of the 
State. The state of family life is equally distressing. 
How few really happy families are there to be found, and 
how many in which the most deplorable conditions pre- 
vail ! Unfaithfulness, selfishness, heartlessness, strife and 
contention prevail. Husband and wife live coldly, or 
even at enmity with each other. Parents neglect their 
duty towards their children, and children look with in- 
difference and without respect upon their parents. 

And such conditions, such increase of crime, such misery, 
is possible after Christianity has existed for nearly two 
thousand years. The unprejudiced inquirer must neces- 
sarily ask himself how the activity and effectiveness of 
Christianity can be brought into harmony with such con- 
ditions. It is impossible to deny that, judging mankind 
from its historical development and actual condition, 
Christianity has done no good. And now a second ques- 
tion comes before our mind. Is Christianity the cause of 
the present state of things? We should be happy to be 
able to deny this, but we must admit the contrary. It is 
not the doctrine of love, of Jesus, which can bring only 
blessings and happiness, but the establishment of dogmas 
which are opposed to reason, that is the main cause of this 
deplorable conditio n. Men have become accustomed to 
look at Christianity and religion as identical, and thus it 
happened that many, when they began to think, and when 
their reason compelled them to renounce dogmatism, re- 



212 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

jected with Christianity also religion, — the belief in one 
Supreme Being, in one God. That is the root of all the 
evil that exists among Christian nations. Christianity, by 
its unreasonable dogmas, has driven men from God, and 
thrust them into the arms of selfishness. The daily and 
steadily increasing number of suicides furnishes a terrible 
proof how many men have been driven to despair in con- 
sequence of having lost the belief in God. 



Christianity, by representing the person of Jesus as a 
mediator between God and man, between father and chil- 
dren, has overclouded the relations of men to God, has 
estranged them from him, and has abolished the adoration 
and worship of God, and directed it to Jesus and other 
persons of the Christian dogma. By assuming to be the 
criterion of the most sublime creed, and as the repre- 
sentative of the highest virtue, and by placing itself 
above humanity, it has destroyed the latter, and the con- 
sequences are all those terrible persecutions and deeds of 
blood of which, we read on every page of the history of the 
Christian Church. 

Christianity demands, above all, a rigid observance of 
its dogmas, which have been established by men and date 
from a time when the people were lost in the belief in 
supernatural things. How would it be to-day with our 
world, if for the last two thousand years we had obstinately 
adhered, in other directions, to old traditions? How 
would it be about the development of the world, about 
progress in every branch of human knowledge and work? 
The old is not good and venerable because it is old, but 
only when it is true and has an honorable past. An old 
man cannot claim the respect and esteem of his fellow-men 



CHRISTIANITY. 213 

because he is old, but only when, and for the reason that 
his thoughts and actions have borne good fruit. 

Let nobody say that dogma is not the true basis of 
Christianity, but the moral precepts taught by the Christian 
Church. That is not so. The essence of Christianity, 
that which distinguishes it from all other creeds, and 
upon which the Christian Church lays most weight, is 
dogma; whilst the principal doctrines preached by the 
Christian Church can also be found in Judaism, in the ten 
commandments, in the Koran of Mohammed, in the doc- 
trines of Con-fu-tse and in the Veda. 

Christian dogmatism has made its adherents intolerable, 
proud and cruel, and instead of bringing peace into the 
world it has brought enmity and hatred. The cause of all 
the persecutions and bloodshed of which Christianity has 
been guilty was not the sublime doctrine of Jesus, — 
"Love ye one another," — which, on the contrary, was 
trampled under foot, but dogmatism, the unreasonable 
teaching of men about Jesus and the misrepresentation of 
his teachings. 

Christianity believes that the righteous and faithful will 
be rewarded, and that the wicked and the unbelievers will 
be punished in a future state of existence. The same 
belief is entertained by the Mohammedans. But what 
the Mohammedans call the right belief is called heresy by 
the Christians, and, on the contrary, what the Christians 
cor.sider to be the true faith is condemned by the Moham- 
medans. Can both be right? And is this not another 
proof that the so-called revelations have no inner value? 
They are the work of men, ripened in the brains of men 
living in times long gone by, and circulated at a period 
when science was still in its cradle, and the knowledge of 



214 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

nature and the universe wa such as would be considered 
a fable to-day. These so-called revelations are children 
of the past, which lave never ripened into manhood, but 
have remained children to this day. Christianity, in 
promising rewards to the good and faithful and threate: - 
ing punishment to the wicked, appeals to one of the basest 
feelings of the human heart, — selfishness. Man should 
not do good in hope of reward or in fear of punishment, 
but because it is his duty. Good and evil find their 
reward here on earth, and our earthly happiness does not 
depend on a blind belief in obsolete dogmas, but upon 
righteous thoughts and kind actions. 

Christianity is overflowing with intolerance, but delights 
in assuming to itself the glory of toleration. But what is 
this so-called toleration? Is it the offspring of humility 
which does not raise itself above others ? No, on the con- 
trary, it is the offspring of disgusting pride, of overbearing 
conduct towards all who believe differently. One can 
only be tolerant towards those whom he believes he has 
the right not to tolerate. But this is a right which no one 
can assume towards another. It is, indeed, a humiliating 
fact that in this nineteenth century there are people who 
believe that they do an act of righteousness if they tolerate 
those who hold different religious opinions from theirs. 
The orthodox Christian thinks he has done his duty 
towards other creeds if he tolerates them. The non- 
Christian, the simple-minded man, who believes in God 
only and tries to do his duty towards his fellow-creatures 
by brotherly love, rejects the pride of toleration and rec- 
ognizes the equal right of all men as his most sacred du^y. 

Wherever Christianity has prevailed, instead of freeing 
the human conscience it has enslaved it, instead of the 



CHRISTIANITY. 215 

God of love and peace it has brought the demon of war 
and enmity. Christianity and its pietism have darkened 
the minds of men and have robbed them of their cheerful- 
ness of heart and their joyful looking up to God. 

That Christianity is incapable of uniting men, to soften 
their minds and to bring about a blissful condition of 
humanity, is proved by the history of all centuries in 
which it has reigned. No other creed (this is an historical 
fact) has caused such inhuman horrors, has caused more 
terrible strife of man against man, has brought so 
much misery and wretchedness into the world as Chris- 
tianity. 

It is said that the cloak of Christian charity covers 
everything, and, indeed, it has covered all the bloodshed, 
all the fanaticism which has cost the lives of hundreds of 
thousands of people, all despotism which keeps mankind 
in fetters to this day. Not so Humanity, which carries no 
cloak to cover unrighteous actions, but which stands before 
you naked and pure and calls to you, "Do what is right, 
be* brethren, act like brethren!" 

Christianity teaches not to love God, but to fear him; 
but there is no fear in love, for love casteth out fear. 
(First Epistle of John iv. 18.) 

Christianity attempts to drive out all earthly joys from 
the hearts of its followers; it asks them to renounce every 
earthly pleasure, and the majority of Christian priests are, 
in appearance at least, opposed to everything that does 
not belong to the Church or to the service of the Church. 
This is the reason why they wish to devote the Sunday 
entirely to the Church, not to use it also as a day of recrea- 
tion and pleasure ; this is also the reason why they wish to 
enforce temperance, prohibition and the limitation of 



2i 6 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

personal liberty, which attempt can produce only hypo- 
crites. There is no expression of Jesus which can be 
brought into harmony with such efforts. W#can only 
pity those who think they are rendering a service to God 
by spending the Sunday in gloomy meditation and brood- 
ing, and who refrain from every useful work and recreation 
because they think Sunday work and Sunday pleasure a 
sin; and thus they lose the beautiful, sunny Sunday, which 
is not intended to be spent in devotional exercises only, 
but should also serve as a recreation after the labors of the 
week, and to give us fresh courage and fresh strength for 
future work. Not so with the non-Christian, the believer 
in God. Whilst the orthodox Christian looks upon this 
earth as a vale of tears, and expects his reward for 
present privations in a future world, the true believer in 
God, who also looks forward to a future world, but in the 
light of a superior spiritual life, enjoys this earth as a para- 
dise which God has blessed with a thousand pleasures for his 
enjoyment. If one wishes to educate men for heaven only, 
and represents to them the things cf this world as withoat 
value, the use of their intellect is superfluous, if they only 
believe blindly and leave everything to the guidance of the 
Church. We may be sure that no angels can be made out 
of such beings, who will finally be ruled only by their 
sensual inclinations and passions, for the sensuality within 
them cannot be killed. 

Christianity has created among men an evil passion 
which wasnotknown before itsexistence, — namely, denomi- 
national hatred and denominational pride. All other 
passions will gradually be calmed, but denominational 
hatred becomes more violent and more intense the older 
it grows and the longer it exercises its influence upon 



CHRISTIANITY. 217 

mankind. The recent brutal persecutions of the Jews in 
Germany and Hungary are a living testimony of this. 

The history of Christianity teaches many things; it 
shows to what monstrous excesses blind fanaticism can 
lead. We see a world of wild passion, persecution and 
inconceivable cruelty, of terrible torments and suffering, 
and a continuous strife against all that is humane. It has 
cast its curse upon families and upon races, upon countries 
and nations of high and noble culture, and all for the sake 
of dogmas and spiritual supremacy. 

It frequently happens among Christians that they curse 
each other in wild passion, and the Catholic Church even 
to-day flings her anathema against all who believe differ- 
ently. Fathers and mothers are not afraid to curse their 
children, without once asking themselves the serious ques- 
tion whether the depravity of their child is not their own 
fault. The non-Christian, the believer in God's fatherly 
love, will never commit such an act; and if parents are 
unfortunate enough to have a clxild who has gone astray, 
they will not curse it, but, on the contrary, they will pray 
that God's all-merciful love will shed its blessings upon it, 
and that it may become better. 

And has Christianity a power that unites and pacifies, 
or one that separates and divides? That it does not pos- 
sess the former is proved by the hundreds of different 
sects into which it is divided, each of which looks with 
evil eyes upon the other, and each of which thinks its 
own creed the only right one. What has become of that 
much-praised Christian love? 

The statistics of the increase and spread of mental 
maladies among Christian people speak in eloquent figures. 
In the United States, in i860, there was one imbecile in 



218 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

1 310 inhabitants; in 1875, one among 953; and whilst 
the population from 1870 to 1880 has increased by 26 per 
cent., the number of insane has increased by more than 
60 per cent. From 1870 to 1880 the number of insane 
had increased from 37,432 to 91,997, while the increase 
of the population amounted to about 30 per cent. In 
Massachusetts, the number of insane people has increased 
during fifty- nine years from 50 to 2976. In the Depart- 
ment of the Seine, in France, the number of the insane is six 
times more than it was thirty years ago, whilst the popu- 
lation has scarcely been trebled. In England, Scotland 
and Ireland the number of insane was, in 1862, 55,525; 
in 1872, 77,013; and in 1882, 98,871. In Prussia, the 
number of insane, in 187 1, amounted to 55,043, while in 
1880 it had risen to 66,345. The number of the insane 
had increased in these nine years by 20.5 per cent., whilst 
the population had increased by 10.6 only. In England, 
in 1859, one i nsane person was found among 535 inhabi- 
tants; in 1875, one among 365. The first census of the 
insane in Italy was taken in 1874. Three years later 
their number had increased by 17.42 percent. Every- 
where we see a terrible increase of the diseases of the 
mind. Radenhausen says, in his work on Christianity: 
"Not one of the principal creeds of the world has created 
so much mental disturbance as Christianity; and if to- 
day, as the Christian priesthood complains, religious 
sentiment is on the decrease, we find in every madhouse 
a great number of persons who have lost their reason by 
brooding over the inexplicable doctrines of Christianity. 
The dogmas of hereditary sin and of the sinfulness of all 
men have furnished a goodly number; also the sins 
against the Holy Ghost, the transubstantiation, the 



CHRISTIANITY. 219 

divinity of Jesus, the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, 
wonderful appearances in a state of trance or in dreams, 
miracles, the fear of hell and the hope of heaven, the last 
Judgment Day, the coming end of the world — all these 
have contributed to fill the asylums. These aberrations 
of the mind, which are incurable, as they were derived 
from and based upon church belief, in many cases caused 
crimes which appeared justifiable. There have been 
mad people at all times, and they now exist among all 
nations and all creeds, even in increasing proportion the 
higher the state of national culture, and the more change- 
able and intricate their social conditions in the various 
degrees of prosperity. But the division of madness 
caused by brooding over church problems is most em- 
phatically recognized among Christian nations, without 
showing a decrease in other divisions." 

But when we see the human mind filled with such 
incomprehensible doctrines as Christianity teaches, can it 
be a matter of surprise that many who brood over these 
things lose their reason and become inmates of mad- 
houses? We hear much of Christian civilization, but 
civilization and culture are not the results of Christianity, 
but the arduously conquered fruit of the free human spirit, 
which has gradually disengaged itself from the fetters of 
the Church. Civilization is not in need of Christia ity to 
fulfill its humane mission, but Christianity is in want of 
civilization to rid itself of the barbarism, fanaticism, per- 
secution, war, belief in wonders and miracles, which still 
adhere to it. Horrors, as happened only two centuries 
ago, such as those committed by the Inquisition, are no 
longer possible to-day, simply because liberty of thought 
has made its way and humanity and brotherly love have 



220 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

driven Christianity and Churchianity into the back- 
ground. Civilization is the contrary of barbarism, and 
has nothing to do with Christian miracles and dogmas. 
The teachings of Jesus, the doctrine of one God and 
brotherly love, have a civilizing mission ; not so the dog- 
mas upon which Christianity is based. 

It is a task of civilization to realize the idea of the 
conscientiousness of equal right, and the suppression of 
barbarism which tramples upon the rights of man. Civili- 
zation proceeds from the union of men, in their spiritual 
as well as in their material life. In the mutual wants 
which this union produces is the germ of civilization, and 
it is the sum of the satisfied physical and intellectual wants 
of human society. 

In all fields of human thought the Christian creed, in 
its foundation and activity, is simply Christian. All 
sciences, such as natural philosophy, medicine, jurispru- 
dence, mathematics, history, geography and political 
economy, as well as all arts, trades and commerce, are not 
Christian, for they are carried on not by Christians only, 
but by the followers of other creeds. Civilization is not 
the offspring of Christian faith, but the natural conse- 
quence of the age and of the gradual development of 
nations and mankind in general, as is the case with the 
development of single individuals. As the unconscious 
child gradually develops into the thinking and active man, 
so mankind has developed in the course of centuries and 
tens of centuries. 

Civilization and culture are of incalculable age, much 
older than Christianity. A very high state of civilization 
existed among the Indians, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks 
and Romans long before Christianity was known. Their 



CHRISTIANITY. 221 

countries contain imperishable monuments of a great 
epoch of culture, — monuments which to this day stand 
before us as emblems of former greatness. The Greek 
Homer is to this day the greatest of all poets, and the 
Greek and Roman poets and prose writers remain brilliant 
models for the present generation. The Greeks taught 
mathematics, philosophy, astronomy and other sciences 
to the Persians and Arabs, Who can number the intel- 
lectual heroes which Greece can count among her artists 
and writers? In sculpture, Skopas, Phidias, Praxiteles; in 
painting, Apelles ; in poetry, besides Homer and Pindar, 
the dramatists ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and the 
cheerful Aristophanes; the orators Isocrates, Lysias, De- 
mosthenes; the historians Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucy- 
dides, and the philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, 
— all men the equals of whom no other nation has pro- 
duced. 

Rome also has shown magnificent work in the domain 
of , mind and intellect — authors like Cicero, Horace, 
Virgil, Ovid, Terence, Livius and Tacitus, who have 
written for all times, and their glory is imperishable. The 
articles found at the excavation of Herculaneum and 
Pompeii are speaking witnesses of the high state of Roman 
art. Egypt is the country where we find the earliest 
traces of civilization. Architecture and sculpture flour- 
ished there four thousand years before the birth of Jesus. 
No nation on earth so early attained such a high state of 
civilization. More than six hundred years before Jesus 
the Phoenicians are said to have attained a high position 
in culture. 

The Chinese have done extraordinary things in litera- 
ture, and their efforts in industry and art are equally 



222 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

remarkable. The oldest newspaper in the world is the 
Pekin Gazette, which has existed over a thousand years. 
No nation possesses an encyclopaedia like the great 
Chinese work consisting of five thousand and twenty 
volumes, a copy of which can be found in the British 
Museum in London. The Chinese printed books from 
wooden tablets as early as one hundred and seventy-five 
years before Jesus was born. Towards the end of the 
sixth century they printed with wooden stereotypes; and 
towards the erd of the tenth century printed books came 
into general use. The proficiency of the Chinese in the 
manufacture of silk and china needs no comment. 

All these nations have disclaimed Christianity. If we 
desire further proof that civilization does not depend on 
Christianity, let us look in our own times to Japan, where, 
within a few years, a civilization has been developed, with- 
out the aid of Christianity, which entitles the inhabitants 
to a place among the civilized nations of the world. 
Since 1867 a great number of public schools have been 
opened, which ten years afterwards were attended by over 
two million pupils, who were instructed by over sixty 
thousand teachers. The government spent for purposes of 
public education $5,000,000 per annum, and during this 
period more than $8,000,000 worth of land was contribu- 
ted from private sources for that purpose. No more elo- 
quent testimony for civilization could be found. 

Sir David Wedderburn lately drew a picture of society 
in Japan, removed from so-called civilized influences, 
which was altogether delightful. He depicted the people 
of the interior as remarkably polite and considerate in 
their behavior, as gentle, kind, industrious and honest. 
He even went so far as to say that Europeans who had 



CHRISTIANITY. 223 

lived among them for years, when they returned to "civil- 
ized" life, were disgusted with the rudeness of the manners 
of their countrymen as compared with the refinement of 
the Japanese. 

He who asks himself honestly why he believes in the 
dogmas of the Christian faith, and gives himself an honest 
answer, must feel convinced that he believes in them 
because they have been taught him from his earliest youth, 
and he kas never asked himself whether they are based 
upon reason and truth. The example of all those non- 
Christian nations, advanced to a high state of civilization, 
must lead him to the conviction that miraculous dogmas 
are not necessary to make nations happy and great. And 
now, dear reader, I beg of you to examine carefully once 
more everything that has been said in the preceding pages, 
and then, from the depth of your heart, to answer the 
question on the title-page of this work: " Is there not a 
faith more sublime and blissful than Christianity ? ' ' 



Religion. 



Yes, dear reader, there is something higher, more 
sublime, more blissful than Christianity, namely, the 
pure belief in one Supreme Being. That is the only true 
religion. The plain, unsophisticated belief in God is 
higher and more elevating for the reason that it is not 
based upon dogmas invented by men, but has its origin in 
our innermost feeling, and speaks directly to our heart; 
because it is not based upon miracles and inconceivable 
enigmas, but is in harmony with our reason and can be 
understood by everybody. It is not in need of supernatural 
revelation, but relies only upon that which throughout the 
universe lies open before our eyes. This faith speaks 
every moment to our conscience; it is our friend, adviser, 
and comforter in all changes of life. It recalls to us every 
moment the great truth that we are all children of one 
eternal God, that all men are brethren, and that the 
sublime commandment "Love ye one another" is the 
highest of all, including all that is good, righteous, and 
virtuous. 

We always hear of different religions, — the Christian, 
the Jewish, the Mohammedan, and so forth, — but, indeed, 
here is only one religion — that is, the belief in one Supreme 
Being. This belief we find to be the foundation of all 
systems of religion and all phases of belief, but it is so 
hidden and distorted by dogmas and secondary matter 

(224) 



RELIGION. 225 

that the main principle cannot be recognized, cannot even 
be found in all this confusi n. 

If we speak of the different so-called religions, it is again 
the question of that one natural religion as opposed to the 
revealed religions ; and the. churches which represent the 
latter look haughtily upon the natural religion, the only 
true one, because it believes in one Supreme Being only, 
and excludes all dogmas and miracles. 

V, hat is the meaning of the word " positive"? Positive 
is that which is established by visible evidence, in oppo- 
sition to that which is the result of thought. Religion of 
Positivism is one which has been established by church 
tradition, and which d es not rely upon thought and 
individual innermost conviction.* 

Therefore, the denomination p sitive, for religious 
directions of that kind, although right in itself, is not 
correct as an antithesis of natural religion. The so- 
called positive religion is an artificial edifice? and if it may 
be called a religion, whilst it is nothing but a phase of 
belief, should be denominated as an artificial and super- 
natural one in comparison with natural religion. 

Any religious creed which is interwoven with miracles 
and superstition prevents free action, worries and torments 
man's heart. On the ^contrary, true religion — the firm 
belief in one Supreme Being, and in the fatherly love of 
God — does not oppress and trouble us, but makes us free 
from passions, and endows us with moderation and dignity 

* I am speaking here of the Positivism (the dogmatism) of the 
Church, which must be distinguished fr< m the Positivism of Auguste 
Comte, the French philosopher, who lived in the first half of the 
eighteenth century, and formulated a faith as part of his positive 
philosophy. 

15 



226 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

which at all times will lead us towards the good, and will 
give us inner satisfaction. 

The history of Christianity teaches us that the so-called 
positive religions have caused unspeakable mischief and 
misery. They have taken away the feeling of human 
brotherhood; they have taught men to consider each 
other as opponents and enemies ; they have taught them 
to elevate themselves above those who believe differently ; 
they have compelled their followers to commit the greatest 
crimes. Intolerance, persecution, religious hatred and 
fanaticism have been the constant followers of so-called 
positive religions. 

The division of mankind into different religious com- 
munities and sects has destroyed true religion in the heart 
of mankind and caused much mischief. How often do 
we not see that regular church-goers have committed 
crimes,* which proves that religion and church-going, 
though frequently connected with each other, are two 
very different things ! It would be impossible that men 
who attend the same church, are present at the same ser- 
vice, and are united with their fellow-creatures in the 
same common prayer, could engage their minds upon the 
execution of some crime if religion had always been con- 
sidered what it really is, if they had been taught that true 
religion does not consist in dogmas and outer ceremonies, 
but in doing right and in following the divine law of 
morality. 

"* In the State prison in Trenton thirteen people belonging to the 
educated classes have served terms of hard labor during the last eight 
years for fraud and other crimes, most of whom were regular attend- 
ants at church. 






RELIGION. 



227 



Religion and belief in the Church are two very differ- 
ent things. The former unites, the latter separates man- 
kind. Those who believe in one God possess true religion, 
whether Christian or Jew, Catholic or Protestant, all men, 
of whatever faith, nation or race. What are the char- 
acteristics and the principles of this universal religion, this 
religion of the heart, which Jesus taught? Religion is 
nothing but the belief in one Eternal God, the Creator 
and Ruler of the World, — the consciousness which pro- 
ceeds from it, that all men are the children of God, and 
consequently brethren, and the submission of our will to 
that of the Supreme Being. The essence of all religion 
is complete and exhausted in the one principle : Thou 
shalt love God and thy neighbor as thyself. That is re- 
ligion, that, and that alone, is the essence of the doctrine 
of Jesus. Religion and simple belief in God are identi- 
cal. Religion is the sanctification of the moral law 
through faith in God, virtue and immortality, It is the ap- 
v preciation of all that is good, beautiful and true ■ it is the 
burning sacrifice on the altar of our hearts • it is the living 
desire after the eternal and the infinite ; it is the harmony 
of all the powers that dwell within us with the demands of 
reason and morality ; it is the only security that the in- 
heritance of man is a sublime destiny, and that his spirit 
is immortal. 

Religion is a want of the human soul ; it is the loveliest 
flower of human nature, and develops itself among all 
nations, the most primitive, as well as the most civilized, 
according to their capability of understanding. The 
craving for a religion is as old as mankind. As far as we 
can follow the history of man, from his earliest beginning, 
from the earliest tradition or myth down to our times, we 



228 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

never find him without religious thought, without the feel- 
ing of submission to a higher or highest spiritual being. 
With primitive nations this feeling expresses itself often 
in strange form, but it is always there. There is no nation 
on the face of the earth without some germ of religious 
feeling, and that proves that religion — the belief in a 
higher or highest being — is a common demand of humcn 
nature, which only needs to be developed and to be 
guarded against the blast of dogmatism to bear the pre- 
cious fruit of peace and love. 

There are two powers which struggle within men's 
hearts for supremacy, — submission to the will of God and 
egotism. When the latter vanquishes, it brings forth 
wrong; when the first conquers, the result is righteousness. 

Religion is the belief in one Supreme Being, which is 
revealed at all times in the destinies of individuals or of 
all mankind, in the wonders of nature, in inconceivably 
sublime works, which to this day are as glorious as they 
were in times immemorial. It is revealed in history, in 
the progress of civilization, in the arts, and in the brill- 
iant results achieved by science. 

Religion is unselfish, self-sacrificing devotion to the 
will of God ; it is the inner life of the human 
soul in and with God ; it is feeling, spirit, mind. 
Religion is man's own particular sanctuary, for no 
other creature has or can have religion. As far as 
we have been able to fathom nature in its innumerable 
phases, there is no evidence of any other being capable 
of any sensibility, of consciousness, of action, which, even 
in the most distant manner, can be connected with re- 
ligion. Nowhere in the animal world can be found a 
trace of religion, or any indication pointing to such a 






RELIGION. 229 



sentiment. Religion is the privilege of man, which he 

enjoys above all creatures. 

Religion is nothing external, nothing political, nothing 

social. It is something purely spiritual : dwelling in the 

innermost part of the heart and soul, it shows itself only 

in the actions of man. Only in his actions is shown the 

true standard of a man's religion. 

Religion is intended to ennoble the human spirit and 

heart, to enlighten man about his destiny here below, to 

direct his path. 

Religion is the source of universal brotherly love, a love 

that is without bounds, which excludes nobody, no matter 
how humble his position may be in the social scale. 
This love is manifested by charity and benevolence, 
which is not refu ed to our enemies. It induces us to 
take a keen interest in the woe and weal of all men ; and 
it never wearies. 

Religion is a plant deeply rooted in the hearts of men, 
and, if carefully nursed in our youth, is developed in after 
years into a vigorous tree, bearing precious fruit. 

Religion is the common property of all men, no matter 
of what race or nation; it is the bond of love which unites 
all mankind and reconciles all differences. Therefore, it 
should not be distorted by sectarian views. All barriers 
which separate man from man, everything which smothers 
even one of the germs which God has planted in our 
hearts that they may grow and flourish, should be con- 
demned. 

Religion is the treasure, the faithful guardian and bene- 
factor of family life. A family in which religious life has 
become extinct can never he truly happy, for in such a 
union husband and wife cannot live in true love together, 



230 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

nor can the children show their parents loving obedience 
and duty. 

Religion is the glory of human life, and must be the 
living principle of all our deeds and works, of govern- 
ment, science and art. 

Religion sanctifies every place. The low-roofed hut 
becomes as sacred as the ancient cathedral with its lofty 
spires. It sanctifies all honest labor and work, — that of 
the plowman and the sower, which are as holy as a prayer 
or a chant. The sound of the woodman's axe in the 
forest, the ring of the blacksmith's hammer as it falls on 
the anvil, are as sacred as the sound of the organ. Religion 
sanctifies all who are good and who do right. 

Religion does not appoint certain days to be observed 
as holy. It does not command, as the Church, that what 
is right and permissible on one day is wrong and unlawful 
on another. All days are holy, the working-day as well 
as the Sunday. Sunday is not a day of gloomy reflection, 
of weariness and laziness, but to be devoted to edification 
and to recreation. 

Religion is the most important and sacred of all 
man's possessions, and as necessary to his existence and 
progress as sunshine is to the seed of the fields. It can- 
not be supposed that a man, arrived at the full maturity 
of his intellect, can model his opinions after the catechism 
which is given to a child. Man has a right to think for 
himself, and he cannot under any circumstances be de- 
prived of this right. He who is conscious of this privilege 
and of his duty towards God and his family, must not 
adopt nor proclaim religious doctrines which are not in 
harmony with his convictions. No man must be forced 
to embrace any religious beliefs. No priest, no preacher, 



RELIGION. 231 

no pope, nor king, but man's reason is his only authority 
in spiritual matters. 

Man is absolutely in need of religion, of the belief in 
one Supreme Being. No philosophy can take its place. 
Religion alone, by its commandment of love, places him 
in the proper relation to his brethren. It is the founda- 
tion of all morality, it brings us joy in the fulfillment of 
our life's vocation, it gives us comfort and strength in the 
hours of sorrow and grief, and it assures us of the immortal- 
ity of our spirit. 

Religion cannot be replaced by science, whatever value 
we may place upon the latter. Religious culture must go 
hand in hand with science. All knowledge, no matter 
how high and advanced, is only of value if we live truly 
religiously and morally. 

Religion gives man strength to withstand firmly all the 
storms of life ; never to waver, but to strive unceasingly, 
and work until victory is gained. 

Religion leads to a virtuous life, and is the strongest 
safeguard and protector against low sensuality. 

Religion is that power which, by invisible bonds, unites 
mankind with that which is eternal and invisible. Relig- 
ion alone can annihilate all the evil which positivism has 
created. 

Religion is the principal means by which we are edu- 
cated to our ideal view of life, and therefore indispensable. 
All that is ideal, all devotion of the heart to the ideal, is 
embodied in religion. It is the constant monitor before 
man's eyes that there is something loftier than eating and 
drinking and the satisfying of sensual wants, that this 
world of the senses is only an outer appearance of that 
which is higher, eternal and ideal. 



232 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Religion is not the belief in a power which at random 
suspends the laws of nature, but a belief in that power 
which appears before us in these laws. 

Religion is not a disturber of joy, but a dispenser of it. 
It will not sadden our lives, but make them joyful aud 
happy ; at the same time it teaches us to partake of the 
pleasures of life wisely and in moderation. 

Religion shows man his own dignity, — to see in his 
own spirit the image of God, to be a child of God. It 
gives him the consciousness and the holy desire to mani- 
fest the spirit of God in all his thoughts, words and deeds, 
not for the sake of men's favor or worldly gain, but only 
for the sake of the dignity of man. 

Religion is that which is best and noblest within man, 
and to have reached this comforting and happy goal is 
well worth an heroic struggle. 

Religion speaks to man as the voice of eternal truth, 
isa power of God, which elevates him above all earthly 
doings. 

Religion is the heart-pulsation of moral life, a constantly 
"enewing longing after the sublime, and therefore the 
innermost desire of the human race. 

Religion is a power which demands man's co-operation, 
and which manifests itself in a two-fold way, — in our rela- 
tion to God and in our relation to our fellow-creatures. 
The true character and the true power of religion are 
shown in our submission to God and in love to our 
fellow-men. 

Religion is the foundation of the highest and most 
sublime possessions of mankind. Whoever fights for 
this prize may be sure that victory will be the final 
reward. 



RELIGION. 233 

Religion is something that has no equal. All that we 
prize in this world is transitory and can be replaced ; not 
so religion ; it is eternal. 

Man needs religion in every circumstance of his life; in 
the most ordinary and in the most elevated. It is the 
want of the uneducated and demand of the most cultivated. 
It is folly to think that the most enlightened in the higher, 
educated classes can do without religion. The richer his 
wealth of thought, the more extensive and developed his 
circumstances may be, man is all the more in need of 
religion, because he has to conquer more temptations than 
those in a different condition. The more elevated the 
position of a man, the more he is in want of broad, leading 
ideas which will direct hi mind in the complication of 
matters, which will give his life a firm hold in the pressure 
of business and bring peace to his heart. 

Religion brings comfort and reconciliation. When 
man has gone astray and has fallen low, it calls to him in 
gentle accents: "Rise, and return to me; with me thou 
wilt find forgiveness and peace." Truly, that is more 
c )mforting than the dark apparition of the- Church which 
has built its throne on the stake, and thunders at him: 
"Down with thee, thou sinner, down in the dust, or thou 
art lost for ever!" 

Religion, because it does not allow selfishness to grow 
up, teaches and assists us to view the world and everything 
around us in the right light, and to occupy at all times a 
right position towards our fellow-men. 

Religion is that field upon which all men can and ought 
to live united in bonds of love. Nothing has separated 
mankind more, for centuries past, than the difference of 
creeds. 



234 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Religion in its purity is the soul of life, a blessed power 
and a shining sin. But when it is shrouded by dogmas 
which separate men, it becomes a fiery and devouring flame. 

Religion is the oldest, most venerable, and most indis- 
pensable of all institutions. It is universal, because the 
need of a God is innate in human nature. 

Religion is liberty. In religion is freedom from eccle- 
siastical and political oppression, as well as the power to 
fight against it; for religion will ask only that which is 
right. Men of religion will not allow themselves to be 
oppressed by either priest or king ; they will not be the 
tool of autocracy. 

The reason why so many people show want of religion, 
or indifference to it, is not to be found in the fact that 
religion, the belief in one Supreme Being, is against their 
nature, but because they confuse religion with dogmatism ; 
and because the Church demands that they should believe 
in and confess to a doctrine against which their reason 
rebels, and which cannot satisfy them. Do not ask men 
to fetter their intellect. They will always cling to the 
pure belief in God ; and this belief will make them purer, 
better, more virtuous and more ready to receive the sub- 
lime docfrine of love for all men which Jesus has 
taught. The longing after the Sublime and Eternal is 
deeply rooted in the heart of man. Thousands and thou- 
sands who never go to church would gladly come. The 
churches would not be able to hold those who would come 
to listen and to pray, if they were not repulsed by dogmas 
which do not satisfy the heart, instead of being attracted 
by Jesus' doctrine of love. What blessings would this 
change produce ! How it would contribute to make men 
happy ! Many an unhappy marriage would be blessed 



RELIGION. 235 

with peace. The bond between parents and children, 
which in these days is so often loosened, would again be 
fastened. Strife and quarrels would be extinguished in 
the germ or peaceably settled, immorality would decrease, 
many crimes would be prevented ; hatred, bloodshed, 
misery and wretchedness w uld grow less in this world. 
Oh ! a heavy responsibility rests upon those who prevent 
this change. But the Christian priests know nothing 
besides the inflexible dogma, and they can imagine piety 
only within the limits of their sectarian doctrines. They 
forget, or wish to ignore, that thousands of years before 
Jesus there have lived many pious and highminded men, 
and that at all times, as to-day, there have been among 
the believers of all religious communities, outside of the 
Christian Church, exemplary and truly pious men. 

What is piety ? True piety consists in reverence of the 
Supreme Being — not in words, forms, and ceremonies, 
not in church-going, prayers, and Bible-reading, not in 
outward devotion and phantasm. It means that our 
thoughts and actions are always such that we feel no 
reproach of conscience, and that we never shun to make 
public what we think or do, or hide it from our fellow-men. 

True piety is purity of thought and will, sacrifice of our 
own self for the sake of that which is true, good and 
reasonable, the infusion into our life of divine qualities. 
True piety is cheerful, and true cheerfulness is pious. 
That cheerfulness in which man forsakes his dignity and 
does something of which he has reason to be ashamed, is a 
flower that exhales perfume, but contains the poisonous 
worm. And a piety which prevents us from looking 
cheerful in the world and in the sight of our fellow-men, is 
not true piety. 



236 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Goethe describes piety in these words : "In our inmost 
heart there lives a desire to surrender ourselves freely 
and gratefully to some higher, purer, and unknown Being, 
to unfold ourselves to Him who is eternally nameless. 
We call this being pious." 

There is a false piety. It is characterized by laying 
great stress upon outer forms, as, for instance, regular 
attendance at church, and strict observance of the com- 
mands and usages prescribed by the Church. It considers 
Sunday only as a day of worship, not one of recreation 
from the work of the past week. It condemns on this 
day every recreation, every social joy, every enjoyment 
of nature. It passes a heartless judgment upon all those 
who are of a different opinion, and who consider that God 
has given us Sunday not only as a day of prayer, but also 
as a day for recreation, and for enjoyment of the 
pleasures of this life. How many of those who go to 
church not only on Sundays, but several times during the 
week, like the Pharisee in the Gospel say: "I thank 
Thee that I am not as other men," and are evildoers and 
godless ; whilst many who never enter a church are pious 
in their heart and would avoid doing the slightest wrong ! 

Among these false pious are those who visit only fash- 
ionable churches, that exclusive church aristocracy which 
likes to reserve for its own use its own richly-decorated 
and well-served churches and keep back its poorer 
brethren. 

In repulsive contrast to piety are the hypocrites, who 
want to deceive God and the wcrld by assuming the mask 
of piety. This pharisaism is not an outgrowth of piety, 
as is often supposed ; on the contrary, it is directly op- 
posed to it, a hideous distortion of that holy feeling which 



RELIGION. 237 

unites God and man. Hypocrisy is the intentional rep- 
resentation of good appearance to deceive others about 
our inner being and desire. Love, friendship, piety, can 
be falsely assumed. The wickedness of hypocrisy, par- 
ticularly of that which takes religion for a cloak, does not 
need to be proved. Hypocrisy is the most hideous, the 
most contemptible, the most demoralizing of all crimes, 
because it defies scornfully the eternal God ; it uses the 
apparent belief in Him as a cloak to.cover wickedness and 
depravity ; it corrupts man to the very bottom of his 
heart, — his whole being becomes a falsehood, a continual 
lie. A professed criminal will sooner be converted than a 
hypocrite. If the latter is unmasked, he generally becomes 
so hardened that moral shame no longer affects him. The 
hypocrite using religion as a cloak is as bad as the robber 
or the murderer, if not worse. The robber steals only 
worldly property, and the murderer takes our mortal life, 
but the hypocrite steals and kills the confidence of man in 
man. People of that class should be avoided like the pest. 
Hypocrisy is particularly an outgrowth of Christianity. 
When a Jew is orthodox, it arises from honest conviction. 
If he is not orthodox, and is what is called are form-Jew, 
he will not assume to appear orthodox. Religious hypoc- 
risy is seldom found among Jews. 

There is another direct contrast to piety, — namely, the 
denial of God, the feeling of those who have entirely 
abandoned the belief in God, who ignore him, the un- 
godly, the godless. The thinking being of pure heart 
can find no difficulty in his choice between piety and god- 
lessness. Whoever meets this question is placed at the 
junction of two roads, one leading to contentment and 
happiness, the other to misery. There is no way between, 



238 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

and whoever tries to find one through the briers and 
thorns, and the morasses of indifference and weakness, 
will find that it leads to no good end. 

The word piety is often misunderstood and misused. 
We read in newspapers of men who are church-goers and 
have committed evil deeds, asa " pious thief," a " pious 
cheat," a " pious sinner," a " pious debauchee." But a 
thief, a cheat, a debauchee, or anybody who commits a 
1 ad action, can absolutely not be pious ; for piety and 
wickedness are absolute contradictions. Such an abuse 
of the word pious can only lead to degrade religion and 
piety in the eyes of those who are not able to judge for 
themselves; and that is cerrainly not the intention of 
those who make use of these unsuitable terms. People 
speak of pictures which represent incidents of biblical or 
sacred history as " sacred pictures." How can a picture 
be sacred ? Sanctity is an attribute of the soul and has 
nothing to do with colors or a paint-brush. We can 
speak of a pious painter or of a man who is of pious mind, 
but it is an anomaly to give to his creations, no matter 
how sublime they may be, the denomination " sacred." 

The words Christianity and religion are frequently used 
in the wrong sense when speaking of one or the other. 
Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism, etc., cannot be 
called religion, because they are blurred and defaced by 
secondary matters. They are not religion proper, but 
merely creeds in which the belief in God forms the pri- 
mary foundation. 

The word religious is also often used in a wrong way. 
We speak of " religious intolerance," "religious hatred," 
"religious enmity," when we should really speak of in- 
tolerance, hatred and enmity which have their origin in 



RELIGION. 239 

ecclesiastic and sectarian differences. One also speaks 
erroneously of " change of religion," of "religious 
errors," of "religious ceremonies," "religious communi- 
ties," when one should speak of change of creed — the 
change from one church to another — ecclesiastic errors, 
ecclesiastic ceremonies and communities. "Religious 
wars," of which we read in history, have never existed, 
for religion is peace, and does not make war. Those wars 
which are called "religious wars" in history, were wars of 
the Church, caused by ecclesiastic persecution. We hear 
of •' ' religious madness, ' ' but religion has never yet deprived 
a man of his reason. It can only soothe every excitement 
and give peace to the mind. Those unfortunate ones who 
have been pointed out as possessed of " religious madness" 
have not lost their minds through religion, but through 
gloomily brooding over dogmas which they could not 
understand, through Bible-reading and dogmas which 
confused their mind. Religion can hurt nobody, can 
deprive no one of his reason. On the contrary, it is a 
friendly power, which, as long as it exists in the heart of 
man, will soothe the grief and pain of the suffering heart. 
There is another word which, in reference to religious 
matters, is often misused, misunderstood, and leads to 
erroneous opinions, — namely, the word free. We read of 
"freethinkers," and so forth; but we are left in doubt 
whether freedom in and through religion, or freedom from 
religion — in other words, atheism — is meant. Those who 
adopt this principle should be honest enough to write 
openly and honestly their war-cry on their ffog, instead of 
seducing others, who do not think clearly, to their opinion, 
by raising the golden standard of liberty. They deprive 
mankind of that support and comfort which religion brings 



240 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

in the storms and vicissitudes of life. There w uld be less 
suicides if the belief in Gcd's fatherly love were not 
violently torn out of men's hearts. 

Many people are of opinion that we can do without 
religion, that the code of morals and ethics contains every- 
thing that is necessary to lead a righteous and happy life. 
But that is an error. Religion teaches us our duty towards 
God, towards ourselves and towards our fellow-men. 
Morality only teaches our obligations towards ourselves 
and our fellow-creatures. Morality alone cannot replace 
religion ; it endows us with ethical principles of action, 
but it leaves the heart cold, and cannot satisfy us through- 
out the length of an average lifetime ; it grants no safe- 
guard and protection when heavy storms shake the foun- 
dation of our being. Man needs religion in its fullness 
of power and beauty to give him peace of mind, to con- 
quer the selfishness which is innate in every human heart. 

Religion and morality stand to each other as theory to 
practice. Religion is the initiative of the good ; morality 
is merely the execution. They are in the same relation 
as abstract to applied mathematics. Religion gives us the 
principles of and instruction to do that which is good; 
morality teaches us how to carry it into execution. 

Fr. Vischer, the well-known religio-philosophical critic, 
defines and distinguishes religion and morals as follows : 
"Morality says, ' Thou shalt.' Religion says, 'I alone 
give thee. power to do what morality commands, for I alone 
conquer selfishness.' And it adds: 'I alone comfort 
thee, when thou hast honestly willed, and yet hast become 
guilty. "' 

Religion is that childlike communion between God and 
man, and not only the sanctification of morality, but 



RELIGION. 241 

the absolutely necessary condition of it. Religion and 
morality as matters of principle and conscience must not 
be separated from each other ; they must not be valued 
and judged apart from each other. 

Morality has been gradually developed from religion ; 
and, according to the principles of an established order of 
society, religion, as teacher and guardian of morality, 
occupies the first place. Morals and ethics are only a 
consequence of religion. Whoever mistakes them for 
religion itself will see in time that he has been mistaken. 
Morals alone are wanting in those elements which are 
indispensable to a contented and happy life. 

Instruction to fulfill our religious and moral duties is 
fully contained in the Ten Commandments, which are given 
in chap. xx. of the Second Book of Moses, so completely 
that whosoever follows these commandments will have 
nothing to repent of at the end of his life. But the con- 
tents of these commandments are neither Jewish nor Chris- 
tian, but purely human, as is shown by a comparison with 
the commandments of faith and morality outside of the 
Christian and Jewish world. We give here a few in- 
stances : 

When the creed of the old Indians, who worshiped God 
under the name of Brahma, began to decay, there arose 
a great reformer named Gautama, born six hundred and 
twenty-two years before Jesus. He saw the corruption, 
and went in search of the wise men of India, in order to 
discover how to bring about the salvation of man. He 
appeared as a teacher in the year 588 before Jesus, and 
worked for many years; and the people and the king 
followed him. His commandments were these: Thou 
shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not be 

16 



242 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

unchaste ; thou shalt not lie, nor swear, nor speak profane 
words; thou shalt not be revengeful, nor covetous, nor 
superstitious. He taught that religion is love, and that 
men should love each other. He taught honesty, obedience 
of children to their parents, good-will towards children 
and friends, generosity, tolerance, charity, and suppression 
of all passions. He taught that love should be returned 
for hatred and ill-will, that evil should be conquered by 
goodness, and lies by truth. Buddhism, the doctrine of 
Gautama, which is six hundred years older than Chris- 
tianity, first "preached the gospel that all men are 
brethren and should love each other. Like Christianity, 
it later passed beyond the limits which divide nations, and 
carried its blessings into the most distant countries, not, 
like Christianity, by persecution and arms, but by the 
power of the convincing word. Buddhism did not per- 
secute the followers of the old Hindoo creed, from which 
it proceeded, as Christianity persecuted its spiritual 
parent, Judaism. Gautama died five hundred and forty- 
three years before Jesus, and was called after his death 
Buddha, which means the Holy One. To this day 
Buddhism, beyond all creeds, comprises the greatest 
number of followers.* 

Mohammed taught : There is one God, who rules the 
world. He must be truly worshiped by men through 
virtue. Virtue consists in submission to the divine will, 
in devout prayer, in charity towards the poor and to 
strangers; in honesty, chastity, sobriety and purity, 

* According to the latest estimates there are 740,000,000 followers 
of Brahma and Buddha; 394,961,000 Christians; 172,965,000 
Mohammedans; 7,000,000 Jews, and 116,510,000 followers of less 
developed or heathen creeds. 



RELIGION. 243 

respect of our parents, patience, continence, sincerity and 
love of truth and peace ; whilst falsehood, revengefulness, 
hypocrisy, avarice, scorn, pride, and extravagance are 
held up as vices. 

The Chinese philosopher Con-fu-tse, who was born five 
hundred and fifty-one years before Jesus, taught : Human 
nature came to us from heaven, pure and perfect ; but, in 
the course of time, ignorance, passion and evil examples 
have corrupted it. It is the all-important task to raise it 
again to its pristine beauty ; and if we wish to be perfect, 
me must again elevate ourselves to that height from which 
we have fallen. Obey heaven and follow the command- 
ments of Him who rules it. Love thy neighbo as thyself. 
Let thy reason, not thy senses, guide thy conduct; for 
reason will teach thee to think carefully, to speak sensi- 
bly, and to show thyself dignified on all occasions. What 
thou wouldst not like to be done to thee, do not do to 
others. Thou needest no other law ; it is the foundation 
and the foremost of all. 

Zoroaster, the founder of the creed of the Parsees, was 
born six hundred years before Jesus. We find his views 
expressed in the holy book of the Parsees, the Zend-Avesta. 
The Parsees believe in one invisible God, and venerate 
his visible symbol, fire, not worship it, as is sometimes 
supposed. The essence of Zoroaster's doctrine is con- 
tained in the words : Think purely, speak purely, and 
act purely. 

In the so-called golden rules of Pythagoras we read : 
Do no evil, neither in public nor in secret, and, above 
all, take heed of thyself, — that is to say, fulfill the duty 
which thou owest to thyself, to thy honor and to thy con- 
science ; let no consideration lead thee away from these 



244 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

principles. Every man should speak and act so honorably 
that nobody has cause to doubt his simple "yes" or 
" no. ' ' Only he who is not a slave to his passions is a free 
man. If thou wilt take vengeance upon thine enemy, do 
good unto him and make him thy friend. 

Socrates, four hundred and sixty-nine years before Jesus, 
taught : If anybody has offended thee, do not offend him 
again, but return good for evil. 

Thales, four hundred and sixty-four years before Jesus, 
taught : Do not do anything which thou blamest in others. 
Do good unto thy enemies ; be kind to thy friends, that 
they may remain thy friends, and to thy enemies, that 
they may become thy friends. Avoid being offended ; 
but if thou canst not, do not avenge offences. Be friendly 
and kind to everybody, speak no evil of anybody, not 
even of thy enemies. 

Aristotle, three hundred and eighty years before Jesus, 
said : We should do unto our fellow-men as we would that 
they should do unto us. 

Hillel, fifty years before Jesus, impressed upon his dis- 
ciples the same rule : Do unto others as thou wouldst they 
should do unto thee. 

Isocrates, three hundred and thirty-eight years before 
Jesus, said : Act towards others as thou wouldst they 
should act towards thee. 

Solon, six hundred and forty years before Jesus, taught : 
Strive after excellence. Those are happy who act hon- 
estly and live moderately. Honor thy parents and 
cherish thy friends. 

Publius Syrus taught : Forgive the wrong which others 
do to thee, but never that which thou doest. Through kind- 
ness thou canst accomplish what is impossible to accom- 



RELIGION. 245 

plish by force. It is better to forgive an offense than to 
avenge it. It is a royal deed to return good for evil. 

We see that the prescriptions of the above-named creeds 
and the sayings of the heathen sages of antiquity contain 
the ideas of the most sublime code of morals, and that re- 
ligion and morality are not Christian or Jewish, but purely 
human. In all lies the germ of the religion of all man- 
kind. 

Tyndall says : " The facts of religious feeling are to me 
as certain as the facts of physics. But the world, I hold, 
will have to distinguish between the feeling and its forms, 
and to vary the latter in accordance with the intellectual 
condition of the age. The world will have religion of 
some kind. You who have escaped from these religions 
into the high and dry light of intellect may deride them, 
but in doing so you deride accidents of form merely, and 
fail to touch the immovable basis of the religious senti- 
ment in the nature of man." 

A modern author, Spielhagen, wrote lately: "All who 
worship God in spirit and in truth constitute the great 
community, the members of which are counted over all 
the earth, in all countries, in all zones, in the palace as in 
the hut; and the future belongs to them. Their God 
does not dwell in temples made by men ; they are their 
own temple, and their thought is prayer. They do not 
observe holy days, because all days are holy to them, and 
they will have no priests, because they are all priests. 
They do not believe in hell, because blissfulness begins for 
them already on earth. They do not fear death, because 
they deny the existence of death; they do not name 
the name of God, because he is nameless and unspeak- 
able." 



246 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

A time will come when all men will understand each 
other, as in the days before God divided the tongues, and 
all men will again be brethren. 

This time will come when true piety has torn off the 
mask from brooding Puritanism and selfish atheism, which 
now contend for supremacy, — when the love of God and of 
our fellow-men, the only aim and end of religion, is placed 
on the altar of all mankind. 

Therefore, ye men, cease to be Christians, Jews and so 
forth. Become men, humanly-thinking men, — not only 
creatures with human bodies and faces, but with hearts as 
Jesus would have them ; men who believe in one Supreme 
Being, who recognize each other as brethren, and think 
and act humanely. Humanity and its needs stand far 
above all creeds. 



God and the World. 



God and the World — Creator and Creation — are two 
ideas which are so closely connected that they cannot be 
considered separately. God cannot be perceived by our 
bodily senses, but can be divined and conceived by our 
inner soul only. We can contemplate and take cognizance 
of the universe with our senses ; but in order not only to 
imagine and feel God, but to recognize Him in all his 
greatness and sublimity, we must look at his creation, the 
universe. 

The Bible certainly gives us a history of creation. It 
relates that God created the world in six days, and then 
rested from his labors, like a tired man, on the seventh* 
But this blasphemous history of creation, which might 
have sufficed when mankind was in its cradle, is not in 
accordance with our matured modern view of the world. 
Mankind has made wonderful progress, and science, which 
has embraced the entire universe, from the smallest micro- 
scopic animal up to the world of stars, has made us better 
acquainted with the world, and has proved that everything 
which has taken place in the world, and which is still taking 
place every day, is based on unchangeable laws. Wherever 
laws exist in such perfection and sublimity, as is the case 
throughout nature, there must be a law-giver, a supreme 
intelligence, a spirit above time and space, who has made 
these laws and executes them. 

(247) 



248 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

A few years ago a Hollander, Iten Doornkaat-Koolman, 
published a pamphlet called "The Infinity of the World" 
(Norden J. Soltan, 1866), which is perhaps the best that 
has been written upon this subject; and as, probably, no 
other pen will succeed in describing so clearly, so intelli- 
gently, so graphically, I let him speak for himself: "If we 
wish to recognize God in his works, and present to our- 
selves distinctly the consciousness of his almighty, all-per- 
ceiving, all-supporting power, we must take into our con- 
sideration the world of creations in its entirety, — all nature 
in its minutest details, as well as in its largest proportions. 
Then only we become convinced that it is unlimited in 
both directions, thrt our senses, even when artificially 
assisted, are nowhere sufficient to discover the limits of the 
world, the landmarks of creation. In order not to lose 
ourselves, in order to prepare gradually our powers of con- 
ception for the astonishing results to which our observation 
will lead us, we must begin with the smallest, with the 
earth and what is living upon it. From thence we will 
ascend into the heavens, examine the sun and its system, 
and finally direct our view to the innumerable world of 
stars, as far as science permits us to take it within our 
measurement. 

"It is a fact recognized by science as irrefutable that 
every living body, every organic formation, consists of 
numerous most minute particles called atoms. Although 
this is an undoubted truth, no human eye has ever seen 
these atoms; single, they have never been perceived by 
our senses, because their indescribable minuteness cannot 
be weighed by our most delicate scales, nor be seen 
through our most powerful microscopes. And they are 
still separated from the smallest forms of organic life by 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 249 

an immeasurable abyss. The smallest infusoria that can 
be recognized with the microscope are so immeasurably- 
minute that we are not able to form an opinion of their 
size, as a single small drop of water contains hundreds of 
millions of them. But if we consider that even these 
smallest animalcule?, are not wanting in limbs to move, 
are armed with means for catching their prey, and for 
their support possess organs for eating and digesting, 
how inconceivably fine must be the particles which com- 
pose their bodies ! And, again, we must remember that 
these organs do not consist of one inseparable piece, but 
are constructed, like every other organic body., of various 
cells, which consist of a combination of primordial mat- 
ter in which is revealed the divine law of life and the 
power of God. 

"If we take the microscope, we see unfolded before our 
eyes a wondrously rich world of life, where before nothing 
existed that could be recognized. The water which we 
drink, the air which we breathe, are filled with organisms 
which can only be perceived by the help of powerful 
magnifying glasses. In the dust of the desert, in the 
water, in the weeds and slime of the sea, we find every- 
where an innumerable number of the smallest organiza- 
tions, many of which, in spite of their minute size, are 
constantly at work in changing, in a noticeable manner, 
the formation of the earth, and force us to recognize that 
even the meanest creature should not be despised; for, 
in God's hands, it becomes a powerful means to further 
his ends. But what the microscope now shows us, where/ 
with its help, such a wonderful and infinitely rich life is 
now revealed to us, — all these things in former times were a 
sealed book, and many generations had to pass by before, 



250 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

by the invention and continual improvement of this instru- 
ment, we succeeded in entering into the world of minutest 
life. Among the smallest of all living creatures is the 
monas crepuscuhim, for which one drop of water is already 
a world of mighty dimensions, as millions of them find 
room for movement in it. There is another species of 
monads of a similar size, which we frequently observe in 
food turning into a state of putrefaction. They appear 
in little red spots, which, on account of their likeness to 
blood, led in former times to the most absurd supposi- 
tions, and provided rich food for superstition. The cele- 
brated Ehrenberg "has examined them in recent times with 
a microscope, and discovered that these red spots were 
nothing but a multitude of the smallest animalcultz, forty- 
six thousand milliards of which would not fill a thimble. 

"In comparison with these, the species of Vibrio are 
mighty giants. Their world is the skin which is formed 
over vinegar. And yet these microscopic giants, — what are 
they? Invisible beings which have never been observed 
by the naked eye. Their length is about the one hundred 
and fiftieth part of a line,* and we may swallow millions 
of them without even imagining their existence; only the 
larger infusoria of a drop of water, the dainty rotifers and 
dragonets, exist on the limits of the world which can be 
perceived by the naked eye. 

"If we continue our wanderings through the world, in 
comparative observation, passing from the smallest to the 
larger world, we find the different species of insects spread 
over the whole earth in infinitely rich variety and every- 
where in great number. Many of them can only be dis- 

* A line being the twelfth of an inch. 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 251 

tinguished by the aid of the microscope, whilst others 
belong to the class of larger animals visible to the naked 
eye. Looking at it more closely, we find this world of 
insects a wonderful construction, and of the greatest 
importance for the household of nature. They have a deep 
and very powerful influence upon the fate of individuals, 
as well as upon that of nations; and history has told a 
great deal of their destructive power. This world of insects 
is instructive and interesting for man, as it shows us in 
what a wonderful manner nature knows how to help herself 
and how to restore equilibrium to her disturbed balance. 

"In field and forest, in the depth of the sea, we find 
innumerable hosts of other creatures infinitely rich in 
variety of formation, — from the smallest animal, apparently 
belonging to the vegetable world, up to the ape with his 
likeness to man, a constantly increasing perfection and 
higher organization. Frequently superior in size and 
strength to man, he rules them only with that intellect 
which God has given him, knowing always how to over- 
come their rude strength by appropriate means. The most 
gigantic representatives of the animal world are the ostrich, 
the elephant and the whale, the latter of which reaches a 
length of one hundred and twenty feet. But if we consider 
their size in comparison to the mightiest representatives of 
the vegetable kingdom, then even these large animals 
appear only to be dwarfs; and as indeed the formations of 
the vegetable kingdom surpass in richness and charming 
beauty the creations of the animal world, they are also 
superior in size and majestic construction. 

"Pointing straight towards heaven, die trees of the 
primeval forests of America, thousands of years old, raise 
their heads to a height of four hundred feet, and the net- 



252 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

work of their strong roots is very deep within the soil. 
We are seized with admiration and astonishment, and also 
with veneration, when, wandering beneath them, the storm 
howls through the leaves of their mighty branches. But 
what becomes again of these giant trees? How insignificant 
their size, when we compare them with the mountains on 
the face of the earth ! Pushed forth from subterranean 
depths by secretly working powers, they rise beyond the 
clouds of heaven, where their heads, covered with eternal 
snow, are surrounded by a shining halo, which irresistibly 
leads our view to the world of stars. 

"If man raises his eyes to the clouds of heaven, their 
height appears to him very great and beyond his reach. 
But if he ascends only a moderately high mountain, he 
finds that the thunder rolls at his feet, and he stands above 
the cloud which sends the lightning to the earth. But 
what is this height compared with the giants of the Andes 
and the Himalayas? From their height of nearly thirty 
thousand feet the ordinary mountains look like small hills. 
And yet these mighty mountain giants, — what are they 
compared to the whole earth? Nothing more than grains 
of sand upon a ball. Their existence cannot even be 
recognized, during a lunar eclipse, in the shadow of the 
earth. Thus, the Great in comparison with the Greater 
appears small, and the most minute microscopic animals 
become giants when compared with the different molecules 
and atoms of organic bodies. Then we look up to the 
atmosphere of the world, and what do we find there? 
Certainly something substantial, because it produces waves 
of light, and is enabled to retard the course of the comets. 
If the single molecules and atoms of organic bodies are 
of such immeasurable minuteness that they are forever 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 253 

withheld from our observation, how minutely divided is 
the ether ! — so indescribably fine that to our observation 
it appears an absolute Nothing; and yet, in ils actual 
influence, in the part which the Creator has assigned to it, 
it is of the greatest importance. Penetrating every space of 
the universe as the conveyer of light, it forms the bridge 
of knowledge of the worlds beyond us, so that only by 
this means we recognize the dazzling light of the sun, 
and the gently beaming light of the moon and the stars. 

"We form frequently a very erroneous idea of the size 
of the heavenly body which is our habitation, — the earth. 
If we consider it, not by itself, but in comparison with the 
sun and the stars of heaven, how infinitely small it is ! to 
what a tiny little dot it shrinks after we have looked at it 
a little closer ! 

"In calculating the elevation of mountains we are 
able to use the fe ot-measure, but we must take another 
standard if we wish to measure the earth, — a standard 
which is better suited to its size.* We use for this pur- 
pose the geographical mile of twenty-four thousand feet 
in length. If we measure the earth with this, we find 
that, with a diameter of nearly eighteen hundred miles, 
it has a circumference of nearly fifty- four hundred, and a 
surface of nine million two hundred and eighty thousand 
square miles. We know almost nothing of the interior 
of the earth and what is hidden there. Our entire knowl* 
edge is limited to a very scanty layer of its outer crust, 

* Throughout this chapter the German geographical mile has been 
used as a measure. The German geographical mile (fifteen to one 
degree) is four times the length of the English geographical mile 
(sixty to one degree) . Of the ordinary English statute mile there are 
sixty-nine and a fraction to a degree. 



254 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

and the greatest depth which man has reached does not 
amount to fire English miles, and thus of the lower regions 
of the earth we really have no knowledge. 

'•'If we look from our earth towards the heavens, it 
would seem as if the whole atmosphere moves daily from 
east to west around our earth. This apparent move- 
ment is only the consequence of the motion of the earth 
itself. The earth turns on its own axis, of which the two 
poles are the resting-points, once in twenty-four hours. 
It is clear that in this manner the revolutions near the 
equator attain a greater velocity than the same revolutions 
nearer the poles. At a distance of one degree from the 
poles the velocity amounts to only ninety-four miles in 
twenty-four hours, whilst near the equator every part of 
the earth makes a daily voyage of fifty-four hundred miles 
— viz., three and three-quarter miles in a minute. People 
living in these parts fly with the velocity of a cannon-shot, 
but they cannot notice this movement, as not only every 
point of the earth, but the entire surrounding atmosphere, 
makes the same movement with them, and thus all direct 
means for observing this velocity are wanting. 

" Besides this rotation on its own axis, which produces 
the change of day and night, the earth is subject to 
another movement which produces the change of seasons — 
namely, its annual revolution around the sun. On this 
voyage the earth must make four and one-seventh miles in 
a second, as the length of this journey is one hundred 
and thirty-one millions of miles. The diameter of this 
circuit measures about forty-one millions of miles, from 
which we know that the earth must be distant from the 
sun about twenty and one-half millions of miles. Light 
is a swift messenger. It flies through this immense space 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 255 

in eight and one-third minutes, which males about forty- 
two thousand miles in a second. Pouring forth from 
the sun, it puts the atmosphere into undulating motion 
without removing from their place the atoms which are 
constantly swinging to and fro. That there is something 
inconceivable and mysterious in these waves of light 
cannot be denied. According to the different rays of the 
sunlight, it has been calculated that not less than from 
four hundred and fifty to six hundred billion movements 
take place in one second. 

"As children of earth, also depending on the sun, we 
will now pay a visit to this our Queen, and, on this oc- 
casion, look a little closer at her. Before we put our foot 
on the surface of the sun we have to penetrate a sea of 
light, before the dazzling splendor of which we must close 
our eyes. This sea is the immense cloak of light of the 
sun which surrounds the more solid body, and which is 
called the photosphere of the sun. Into its depth of thirty 
thousand miles we could drown the earth and all planets, 
without excepting Jupiter, which is one thousand four 
hundred and seventy-four times larger than our earth, 
even without discovering a trace of them. It is easily 
understood that this photosphere must exercise an im- 
mense pressure upon the surface below it. The atmos- 
phere of the earth, which is only ten miles high, presses 
with the weight of two thousand one hundred and seventy- 
eight pounds upon the square foot. From the fact that 
the atmosphere of the earth produces light under a certain 
pressure, we can explain the existence of the light of the 
sun. It is possible that the sun is a body enveloped in a 
burning sea, the flames of which are nourished by the 
gases which proceed from it, thus producing solar light. 



256 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

After we have arrived safely, and without being blinded 
by the sea of light, upon the firm surface of the sun, we 
are struck at once by its immensity. In order to proceed 
more quickly we make use of electricity in our voyage, 
which travels at the rate of sixty-one thousand miles per 
second. As ten seconds suffice to return by this express- 
train to our point of departure, we find that the circum- 
ference of the sun amounts to quite six hundred thousand 
miles. Its diameter is one hundred and ninety-three 
thousand miles, and its contents so mighty that it would 
require about one million and a half of our earths to 
represent its size. In order to give even a more compre- 
hensible idea of its magnitude, and in order to make it 
perfectly perceptible, we would mention the following 
facts. Everybody knows the moon, which, as a satellite 
of this earth, revolves around it in twenty-eight days, at a 
distance of fifty thousand miles. If we suppose the earth 
to be situated in the centre of the sun, and the sun a 
hollow body, the moon could revolve around the earth 
within the circle of the sun and yet remain as far distant 
from the extreme circumference of the sun as it is from 
the earth. All the bodies of the planetary system would 
find more than room in the interior of the sun; for, 
counted all together, they would not amount to the seven- 
hundredth part of its body. That this immeasurable 
body must exercise a great influence upon the surrounding 
heavenly bodies will be easily understood. By means of 
its power of attraction the sun rules within its domain 
with an iron rod. None of its subjects can refuse 
obedience, for its power extends to the extremest distance. 
The limits of its empire which have been measured 
amount to at least seventeen billion six hundred million 






GOD AND THE WORLD. 257 

miles. In the year 1680 a large comet appeared. The 
celebrated astronomer Encke calculated its course, and 
found that its period amounted to eight thousand eight 
hundred years, and at its aphelion it proved to be seven- 
teen billion six hundred million miles distant from the 
sun. Its power of attraction forces its influence, even at 
this immense distance, upon the bodies travelling through 
the heavenly space, and it does not permit its subjects to 
move according to their own will, or leave their prescribed 
path. 

"As regards the larger planets, several of them surpasa 
our earth in size. Uranus is eighty-three times larger, 
and Jupiter, ihe largest of all, one thousand four hundred 
and seventy-four times larger than the earth. Their dis- 
tances from the sun, as well as the period of their revolution, 
are very different. Mercury, which is nearest, makes a 
revolution of eight million miles in eighty-eight days, 
whilst Neptune, the most distant, six hundred and twenty- 
two million miles, requires two hundred and seventeen 
years to accomplish its revolution. 

" The smaller planets, called asteroids and planetoids, 
are small bodies invisible to the naked eye. The largest 
of them, such as Pallas, Ceres and Juno, have been known 
for many years. Their number is annually increased by 
new discoveries. As they are of secondary importance 
for us, we will leave them and pass to the moons, of which 
our own is the most important. Even with the naked eye 
we discover on its surface all kinds of configurations of 
unequal light. But if we look at our moon through a 
telescope, we recognize distinctly that its surface is very 
irregular, and in every direction cut up by deep valleys 
and chains of mountains. We also see basins of different 

17 



258 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

dimensions, surrounded by circular walls, which, not very 
appropriately, have been compared to the craters of our 
volcanoes. To what cause they owe their existence is 
unknown. We know another circums^nce relating to the 
moon — namely, that it has no water and is not surrounded 
by an atmosphere like our earth's. Animals and plants 
which require air and water for their existence cannot live 
there, and any possible inhabitants of the moon must 
possess an organization entirely different from ours. 

" The sun, like the earth and the planets, rotates on its 
own axis. The time of this rotation amounts to twenty- 
five days and seven hours. Besides this rotation the sun 
has another continuous movement in the space of the uni- 
verse. This is calculated to amount to eight hundred and 
thirty-four thousand miles within twenty-four hours; and, 
according to an approximate estimate, the sun would re- 
quire eighteen million two hundred thousand of our 
years to accomplish one revolution. 

"As its subjects, the planets, etc., cannot leave it, we 
also must accompany the sun in its rapid voyage through 
the immeasurable distances of the universe. Thus we 
know of three distinct movements of the earth — first, the 
rotation of the earth on its own axis ; secondly, its revo- 
lution around the sun ; thirdly, the general movement of 
the earth and the whole planetary system, with the sun, 
around a common center. But what is this common 
center? Is it an infinitely large, dark, central body, or 
the general point of gravitation of the entire system of the 
Milky Way? 

"Indefatigable in their desire for knowledge and to 
measure every phenomenon of the universe, astronomers 
have made efforts to ascertain the probable size of •the 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 259 

fixed stars. The results so far accomplished are of such 
immense distances that everything we have hitherto 
said about the size of the sun and the heavenly bodies 
disappears. It is said that the star Vega, in Lyra, has a 
diameter of one billion four hundred million miles. If 
Vega were hollow, and the sun were placed in its center, 
all planets, even Neptune, with its distance of six hundred 
and twenty million miles from the sun, could freely travel 
around it without touching the extreme circumference of 
the star. The magnitude ascribed to the Polar star is 
supposed to be much greater, and here -every point of 
comparison is wanting. 

" From the immense magnitude of the fixed stars, we 
may conclude a corresponding distance. In order to find 
a measurement for this, we have no figures within our 
comprehension ; we must leave the distance of terrestrial 
miles, and form celestial miles by means of the light 
which in one year can travel over the space of one and 
one-third billions of miles. A year of this period of light 
shall be our standard— a celestial mile. And what is the 
result in calculating the first and nearest fixed star ? A 
Centauri, near the South Pole, and, therefore, invisible to 
us, is distant not less than three and two-third years of 
light-time. The second nearest is No. 61 in Cygnus (the 
constellation of Cygnus is found in the bifurcation of the 
Milky Way, where its principal star, Denet, shines), the 
light of which requires eleven years of light-time to reach 
us. The third is Sinus (in Canis Major), the brightest 
of all fixed stars. It sends its rays from a distance of 
eleven years of light-time to our earth, and the Polar star 
requires fifty-seven of such years before its light finds its 
way to us. The beams which guide the mariner on his 



260 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

course on dark nights, and lead him as a friend and com- 
forter on the desert of the ocean, have left the Polar star 
fifty-seven years before they reach the eye of the navigator. 
Now we arrive at that invisible world of stars of which the 
Milky Way forms the extreme limits. According to 
Maedler the sun is six hundred and eighty light-years 
distant from the center of the Milky Way, Alcyone. It 
is four thousand years distant from its extreme limits, so 
that the whole diameter of this constellation of the system 
of the Milky Way amounts to about nine thousand years 
of light-time, or nine thousand times *,333>Z33>333>333 1 A 
miles, which is an utterly incomprehensible distance 
for us. 

"If we look at night towards the starry firmament, we 
imagine that we see an innumerable host of beaming stars. 
Such is not the case ; for in both hemispheres we cannot 
see with the naked eye more than from five thousand to 
six thousand. But if we use a powerful telescope, the 
whitish veil of the Milky Way becomes divided into single 
stars. Herschel thinks he is justified in estimating the 
complete number of the Milky Way system at eighteen 
millions at least. Other astronomers estimate it from at 
least two hundred millions to three hundred millions. And, 
should these be the only inhabitants of the universe? We 
can say No, with confidence, although the world, if it 
consisted only of this system, would be large enough, and 
preach loudly enough the greatness of the Creator. If, 
on a bright night, we examine the heavens attentively, 
we discover in many places, on a dark ground, a whitish 
light like a delicate mist. If we look at them through 
the great telescopes of Herschel and Rosse, many of these 
nebulae dissolve into single stars. Astronomers justly 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 261 

consider that they recognize in them compact groups of 
stars similar to those of our Milky Way. Thousands of 
these have been discovered, which, in the most incompre- 
hensible distances, enliven the space of the universe. The 
distance which separates us from these most remote groups 
of stars is so great that it would require at least eighty 
million years before the light of these stars could reach us. 

"Every space of the universe is filled with innumerable 
beings and worlds ; and we see how they are governed by 
the supremest laws of reason, in a constant state of chang- 
ing movements, in continual birth and annihilation. 
When we consider all these formations of matter, all 
these laws which govern the world, the thing which first 
most strikingly and inevitably impresses our understand- 
ing, the thought which is overwhelmingly revealed to our x 
veiled eyes at every step, is the idea of an omnipresent 
Supreme Intelligence, the lofty exercise of an infinite and 
eternal Reason, which is beyond mortal understanding to 
seize and comprehend in the true grandeur and reality of 
its being. It cannot be denied that this Supreme Intelli- 
gence, this Supreme Reason, must proceed only from a 
spiritual being, and can live only within a spirit. 

" It is an undisputed fact that everything made by the 
hand of man — the most insignificant utensil — is the prod- 
uct of a preceding intellectual activity, and must first be 
invented and formed in the human mind before it can be 
worked and finished from the matter of which it consists. 
If this is a fact, if this cannot be refuted, must it not be 
the same with the wonderful works of creation, with the 
innumerable beings and worlds of the universe, which 
exist in such incomprehensible perfection and eternal 
harmony in the endless space of the universe ? Would it 



262 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

not require also a preceding intellectual activity ? Are 
they not also the result of spiritual creation ? Have they 
not also been conceived and been present, clearly and 
distinctly, before the spiritual eye of a Supreme Intelli- 
gence before they were revealed in animated matter? 
Whoever has looked most deeply into the work of nature, 
whoever has profoundly perceived the working of this 
Supreme Intelligence, whoever has formed an idea of his 
own littleness, of his limited knowledge, of his dependence 
upon something superior, must answer all these questions 
in the affirmative ; for as in the working of nature an 
intellectual activity is everywhere revealed, it is necessary 
that there must be a possessor of this intelligence, there 
must be a spiritual being, who stands above matter, who 
rules over it and embodies his ideas in it, and allows them 
to assume form." 

So far we have quoted Doornkaat-Koolman. Are there 
any further proofs required of the existence of God? 
Scarcely. And yet they exist. There are men who say, 
" What proof have we that there is a God? We cannot 
see God." The answer to these doubters would be: 
"Can you see your own soul? Or do you believe, be- 
cause you cannot see it, that you have no soul ? Or do 
you believe, on account of some observations invisible to 
the bodily eye, that you have a soul? And have you 
not the same indication in proof of the existence of 
God?" 

Another proof of the existence of God, which every 
man carries within himself, is the voice of conscience. 
If thy conscience warns thee or accuses thee, canst thou 
command it to be silent ? Look back upon thy whole life 
and thou wilt find an answer to this question. This 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 263 

answer will irrefutably solve the question whether there is 
a God, a higher spiritual being above us, or not. 

And does not all kuman and spiritual operation empha- 
size the fact that wherever something is created there 
must be a creator? How have all the masterpieces of 
poets, composers and painters come into existence? Cer- 
tainly not by themselves. There were spiritual powers 
which by means of language created glorious poetry, by 
means of tones those mellifluous melodies which rejoice 
our ear and our heart. There were spiritual powers 
which, with brush and color, produced on canvas those 
pictorial representations which, even after centuries, 
arouse our admiration. Such human creations, however, 
can no more be compared to the creation of the world, 
than weak human power can be compared to the almighti- 
ness of God ; but, nevertheless, they are a proof that 
nothing can come into existence by itself, and that every 
created thing must necessarily and under all circumstances 
have a spiritual author. 

How many truths there are which we can apprehend 
with our human senses, the causes of which we cannot 
comprehend ! Who is able to understand how electricity 
in one moment carries a message hundreds of miles ? We 
cannot deny the fact, and know that it is the electric spark 
which produces these results. But how is it possible for 
electricity to perform this work? Of that we know 
nothing. We know the delicate perfume of the rose, the 
glorious songs of the lark and the nightingale, the gor- 
geous colors of many birds and butterflies ; we know that 
the Guinea-fowl has spots and the zebra stripes, because 
we can apprehend these things with our senses. But what 
is the cause of the perfume of the rose, of the enchanting 



264 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

songs of the lark and the nightingale, of the glowing 
colors of the butterflies and the bird*? What is the reason 
that the Guinea-fowl has spots and the zebra stripes ? Of 
these things we know nothing. We must be satisfied with 
the conclusion that ail these things have been decreed by 
a creative intelligence. 

No thinking man will dispute that there is much in this 
world which we recognize as fact without being able to 
fathom the causes of it ; and if the blind man does not see 
the rising of the sun, and the deaf man does not hear the 
rolling of the thunder, yet the sun rises every day and the 
thunder continues to roll. One might think that those 
who have been born deaf and dumb could have no idea 
of the existence of God, yet such is not the case. Ex- 
perienced teachers of these unfortunate people have ascer- 
tained by observation that persons who are deaf and 
dumb, without instruction carry within themselves the 
consciousness of a God, and of the difference between life 
and soul, — another proof that the idea of a superior or a 
Supreme Being is firmly rooted in human nature. 

Positive proofs are not always required to show a truth. 
Circumstantial evidence is sometimes sufficient to estab- 
lish it. When an impartial and unprejudiced judge is 
forced, by the weight of conflicting testimony, to assume 
the existence of an object by the absence of proofs as to 
the non-existence of the same object, he is compelled to 
believe in its existence, for then it is clearly made evident 
that the object exists. If we demand more, we would 
degrade history to a fable and obliterate historical cer- 
tainty. 

Beyond all doubt, our earth has experienced many revo- 
lutions, heavenly bodies have perished, stars have disap- 






GOD AND THE WORLD. 265 

peared, and new ones have appeared which had not existed 
before. This proves irrefutably that everything in the 
universe, as regards form and outward appearance, is per- 
ishable and subject to continual change. We can perceive 
this fact with our senses, but the cause of it we can neither 
comprehend nor reduce to laws of which we have knowl- 
edge. But everything that happens gives us a proof that 
an eternal, creative, powerful force, a sublime spirit, is at 
work throughout the universe in little and also in great 
things. 

We mortals probably will never have a clear compre- 
hension as to the manner in which the world was created. 
Let us leave this to natural science. Man must be satisfied 
with knowing that God is his creator and the creator of 
all beings. Everything in the advanced state of modern 
science leads us to this belief. Even if the limits which 
scientists have placed upon our knowledge of nature, even 
if everything which exists could be produced by mechani- 
cal movements, from the time when moving atoms, a 
primitive cosmic matter or nebula alone existed (to which 
final germs science has reduced the primary cause), — even 
then the questions would remain to be answered : Whence 
comes this primary matter? Whence the movement of 
atoms? Whence the powers of attraction and repulsion? 
Everywhere the book of science must conclude with such 
interrogatories, because, in its utmost limits, creation has 
put an end to all experiments and conclusions. There, 
at those extreme limits, where the conviction with over- 
whelming power is forced upon us that all our knowledge 
is piecework, there we must bend our knee in reverence 
and adoration before Him who has been from eternity 
and will be forever. 



266 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

God lives and reigns. His rule extends over all the 
earth and throughout the universe. Every age points to 
his 'sceptre. At his command generations rise and fall, 
nations appear and perish. He has elevated and humiliated 
individuals, families, tribes, and peoples. His eye includes 
all destinies. He rules, and he rules in such a manner 
that when sorrowful moments come, when we might ask, 
Why? Why? his fatherly love will appear and mingle 
in all that concerns us. 

There is a wide abyss between the God of the Jewish 
people, as he appears in the Old Testament, and the God 
whom Jesus revealed to us. The God of the Old Testa- 
ment is a Being possessed of all human defects and passions, 
wrathful, cruel, and full of vengeance; only the protector 
of the Jewish people, who alone find grace before him, 
whilst all other nations are a horror in his eyes and worthy 
of destruction. He gives command for the ruthless 
murder of men, women, and children. Like a human 
autocrat, he changes his laws according to his pleasure. 
He has no respect for law and right. According to the 
Old Testament, he placed before the first pair the seductive 
tree of knowledge of good and evil, threw the serpent, 
the symbol of seduction, in their way, and, after the first 
pair had eaten of the fruit of the tree, he drove them out 
of Paradise because they succumbed to temptation which 
he himself had prepared, by planting in their heart the 
desire to break the law. He is, or was, a God who created 
men, and afterward repented that he had created them; 
a God who sent down a flood which destroyed nearly every 
living thing, and then again repented ; a God who accepted 
the sacrifice of innocent beasts for the expiation of sins, 
which they could not have committed, but which had been 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 267 

committed by their master, man; a God who commanded 
the burning of animals as a sacrifice of gratitude and joy 
for benefits which he had bestowed upon mankind. 

That is the God of the Old Testament. How different 
is that God which Jesus has revealed to us ! He is not a 
dreaded ruler of a single nation, but the loving father of 
all mankind, of every nation or creed ; he is not the con- 
demning judge, who visits the sins of the father upon the 
children unto the third and fourth generation, but the 
forgiving father, whose sun rises over the good and the 
wicked, and who lets his rain descend upon the just and 
the unjust. Who could resist loving this God, who 
embraces all men with his love? Who would not strive to 
please him? 

The phrase " a personal God" is of old tradition, yet 
it cannot be justified, for the word "personality " includes 
limit, which is not in God and never can be in him. 
The idea of a person or personality, according to the 
usual meaning of the words, applies only to man, a bodily, 
limited, earthly being, who is capable of thinking, willing, 
and acting. The idea of a God is a purely spiritual one, 
and his qualities are as far above those of mankind as the 
most distant star is from this earth. His infinite plenitude 
of goodness, knowledge, power, and wisdom is stretched 
like a blessing hand over all the earth, protecting, guard- 
ing, and sustaining all. 

Christianity teaches us to fear God, and the fear of God 
is considered as a necessary attribute of a good Christian. 
But man should not and must not fear God any more than 
a child should fear its parents. There is no fear in love, 
but "perfect love casteth out fear." Our feeling towards 
God must not be fear, but reverence, and the desire 



268 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

which proceeds from it to prove ourselves worthy of it 
by our deeds and thoughts. 

The more man recognizes in God not only the Creator 
and Preserver, but the loving Father, and the closer he 
clings to him, the more he will come to a knowledge of 
his own dignity and moral obligation. Fear will dis- 
appear, and love take its place ; and in this love to God 
live the union of all ideas, the reconciliation of all con- 
tradictions, the highest consciousness of God. 

Among all teachers of mankind who have ever lived, 
Jesus was the first whose great soul found the most sub- 
lime, the most comprehensive, and the most blissful 
expression for God, — "Our Father." 

The most perfect confidence goes hand in hand with 
this perfect, reverential love. But we should not hope 
that God, in our need, will help us with a miracle. 
However great may be the load that oppresses us, we should 
not sit down idly, but use our intellect and do what our 
reason commands us ; then our confidence in God will 
not deceive us. God's constant guidance of our destiny 
is an education full of wisdom, which we all need, even if 
the elements of this education sometimes necessitate trial 
and suffering. All joy which is bestowed upon us, and all 
labor, want, grief, and pain which we have to carry, come 
from his fatherly hand, and are for the best ; and we 
must accept all that God sends us with gratitude and quiet 
resignation, with hopeful and unquenchable confidence. 
We must never forget for a moment that all things are for 
the best to those who love God ; and that everything 
depends upon God's blessing. The belief in God and in 
his fatherly love is that center in which all mankind meet, 
as the whole earthly family meets in the house of the father. 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 269 

In his innermost soul man needs an object of sublime 
reverence. He feels that a higher power watches over 
him, an invisible power which is infinitely superior to 
him, a power which he dreads to displease, to which he 
can turn for comfort and help in times of misery and 
sorrow, and to which he is responsible for his actions. 
This presentiment, this belief, goes through all stages of 
the development of our religious consciousness. In the 
germ it shows itself, even to-day, among uncultivated and 
savage nations in rude form. But it gradually develops 
in the same manner as Christianity in its doctrine of the 
Trinity. And it is only one step toward the belief in one 
Supreme Being, toward the purely spiritual belief in God. 

Max Muller, the well-known Orientalist, in a recent 
lecture spoke of the ancient Aryans as follows: " The 
old Aryans felt from the beginning the presence of some- 
thing supreme, infinite, and divine, or whatever we may 
call it to-day; they tried to seize it and to understand it 
by giving it name after name. They thought they found 
it in the mountains, in the streams, in the clouds, in the 
heaven and in the father of heaven. But no name would 
satisfy them. What jthey looked for was not in the 
mountains, not in the dawn of day, not in the clouds : it 
was not a father. It was something of all these, but 
more; even the name ' Deity' could not satisfy them. 
1 There may be deities/ they said, ' but we seek a more sub- 
lime word, a purer thought.' They desired no deities, not 
because the idea was too high for them, but because they 
wanted something higher. What lived in the Aryans was 
the striving after the Supreme, and their cry of despair was 
the harbinger of a new conception of God and the 
world." 



270 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

In the Vedas of India we find the following : "There 
is a living and true God, eternal, without form and parts, 
and without passion, almighty, all-wise and all-good, the 
preserver and creator of all things. He is all -knowing, 
but nobody knows him ; he is called the great, wise spirit ; 
he is the God who penetrates, all-powerful, through space; 
he lives in the light and in everything that is. The Lord 
of Creation was before the universe. He lives in all 
beings and rejoices in his creation, and dispenses retri- 
bution justly throughout all times. " ^ 

The same sublime idea of God can be found in many 
of the sacred poems which are sung by the people in 
India ; and many works which treat entirely of the idea 
of a God can be found in their hands. Here follow a few 
passages from them : 

"Do not inquire after the being of the Eternal, nor 
after the laws according to which he rules. Be satisfied 
that thou daily beholdest his wisdom, power and goodness 
in his works. Thou, O God ! art the true, eternally bliss- 
ful light of all time and space. Thou wast before all. 
Praise and adoration be to thee. The Supremest Being 
is invisible: nobody has ever seen him, time has not 
comprehended him. His being penetrates everything, 
and all things proceed from him. All power, all wis- 
dom, all knowledge, all sanctity, and all truth are in 
him; he is of infinite goodness, justice, and mercy; he 
has created all things, preserves everything, and likes 
to dwell among mankind, to lead them to eternal happi- 
ness. I serve the Lord who has created the world, in 
whom it exists, to whom it will once return, and in 
whose splendors it shines, — the Lord whose glory is 
eternal and unspeakable, and to whom holy men 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 271 

elevate themselves when they have scattered the dark- 
ness of error." 

In Mohammed's Koran we find the following: " God 
is the only and eternal God. He does not beget, nor is 
he begotten. No being is like unto him. There is no 
other God than he who lives from eternity. He does not 
sleep, neither does he slumber. To him belong heaven 
and earth, and all that is in heaven and upon the earth. 
All that is in heaven and upon earth praise God. He is 
the mighty, the wise, the seen and the unseen, the first 
and the last. He knows everything. He is the light 
upon thy path. Praised be God, the gracious and merci- 
ful, the Eternal Judge. We worship thee ; from thee we 
implore help. Guide us in the right way, that we may 
not go astray." 

Among the commandments of Zoroaster we find the fol- 
lowing : "Good works and not blind belief assure you 
the entrance into the higher life. According to your ac- 
tions you will be judged ; if you lead a pious and virtuous 
life, your reward will be in heaven ; and when you have 
sinned, repent and amend, and the Eternal Judge will be 
merciful and forgive you." 

In " Shuking," the principal work among the writings of 
Con-fu-tse, it is said of God: "He penetrates through 
everything, hears and understands everything. How great 
and sublime is he, how just and how wise ! The beauty 
of heaven proclaims his greatness, the inexhaustible fer- 
tility of the earth shows us his benevolent care; teach 
the people to praise him and to thank him for his 
benefits." 

Socrates writes : "God sees and knows everything. He 
who carries this in his heart will do no wrong, neither in 



272 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

secret nor in public, for he knows that nothing can re- 
main unknown to God." 

Aristotle says : " There is a supreme intelligence which 
is the fountain of all that is good and true. It is eternal ; 
it is a Supreme Being, purely spiritual and invisible ; it 
knows everything, and the whole universe is its subject." 

The Book of Death of the Egyptians, one of their old- 
est records, says about God : "I am Turn, the creator of 
heaven, the maker of all creatures who come from the 
earth ; the creator of fertility, the lord of all things, the 
father of all things, who has created himself; the lord of 
life, the rejuvenator of the circle of the gods." 

Plutarch, in his work on Egyptian mythology, says : 
" There is only one intelligent being who orders all 
things ; a ruling providence who is placed above all things, 
and who enjoys veneration, and to whom, among different 
nations, different names have been given." 

Cicero says : " The -whole universe is under God's 
power. By his nature, energy, soul, divinity, or by what- 
ever clearer name may be found, all things are governed." 

The Greek Anaxagoras taught : " There is one eternal 
God, who is the author of all things. He is the divine 
soul of the world, the infinite wisdom which created out 
of chaos the world in which we live." 

Another Greek, Xenophanes, says : " There is one God 
greater than all other gods and men, neither in form nor 
in spirit like unto mortals. He sees and knows every- 
thing and rules everything." 

Thus we have, amongst the most diverse nations, proof 
that the basis of their sentiment and thought was their be- 
lief in one Supreme Being. I will quote one more say- 
ing of a celebrated man who belongs to modern times. 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 273 

Voltaire, the famous poet, philosopher and critic, who 
during his long life neither enjoyed nor claimed for him- 
self a reputation for faith or piety, in the last days of his 
life expressed himself thus: "O God! thou whom the 
universe proclaims God, thou knowest me. Hear my last 
words. If I have erred, it was because I have inquired 
after thy law. My heart may have gone astray, but yet 
it was full of thee. I look into the face of eternity without 
uneasiness, for I cannot believe that God, who has created 
me and overwhelmed me with so many blessings, would 
condemn me when my earthly life has come to an end." 

The opinion of a man like Voltaire is full of meaning. 
He who during his whole life was not able to recognize 
God, when the end approached threw himself upon God's 
great, fatherly heart and breathed his last upon it in the 
belief in him, the eternal God. And how many others 
who, like him, during their whole life would not believe 
in the existence of God, have, like him, when the end 
approached and their spirit was free from earthly things, 
humbly acknowledged their error ! 

I will add a few utterances of the most illustrious men 
of modern times : 

The philosopher Spinoza, born in 1632, taught : "Only 
love to the Eternal can give peace to the soul and satisv 
faction to the spirit. This love for the eternal arises from 
the harmony in which man lives with the entire divine 
nature. God is the inner cause of all, whatever there is — 
the primary power, and everything has its origin in him." 

Moses Mendelssohn says, in his " Phaedra :" "Reason 
and meditation lead our spirit from the sensual impres- 
sions of the physical world back to its home, into the 
realm of thinking beings ; first to its equals, to created 

18 



274 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

beings, who, on account of their mortality, can be con- 
ceived of and understood by others. From these it rises 
to the chief fountain of all that can be comprehended, 
to that Being who comprehends everything, but who is 
incomprehensible to all, of whom we know, to our com- 
fort, so much — that everything that is good, beautiful 
and perfect in the world of matter and in the world 
of spirit, proceeds from him and is preserved by his 
power. ' ' 

The philosopher Fichte says : " The belief in a divine 
providence is an active, working power, whose blissful 
existence everybody who is blessed with spiritual de- 
sire has experienced in himself, or is capable of experi- 
encing. " 

Thomas Paine says, in his writings : " Were man im- 
pressed as fully and as strongly as he ought to be with 
the belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by 
the force of that belief; he would stand in awe of God 
and of himself, and would not do the thing that could not 
be concealed from either. To give this belief the full 
opportunity of force, it is necessary that it act alone. 
This is Deism." He says again, in another place: 
"There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly under- 
stood, that is not to be found in any other system of 
religion. All other systems have something in them that 
either shocks our reason, or is repugnant to it, and man, 
if he thinks at all, must stifle his reason in order to force 
himself to "believe in them. But in Deism our reason and 
our belief become happily united. The wonderful struc- 
ture of the universe, and everything we behold in the 
system of the creation, prove to us far better than books 
can do the existence of a God." And further he says: 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 275 

" While man keeps to the belief of one God, his reason 
unites with his creed. He is not shocked with contradic- 
tion and horrid stories. His Bible is the heavens and 
the earth. He beholds his Creator in all his works, and 
everything he beholds inspires him with reverence and 
gratitude. From the goodness of God to all, he learns 
his duty to his fellow-men, and stands self-reproved when 
he transgresses it. Such a man is no persecutor. ' ' 

Zschokke says, in his " Alamontade : " " Man is com- 
pelled by his reason to believe in God, and the voice of 
reason penetrates all sophism." 

Lipsius says: "Who will only believe in divine wis- 
dom when he has understood it with his reasoning power, 
does not believe in divine wisdom, but only in his 
own." 

Doctor Stern says, in his "Religion of Judaism:" "The 
consciousness of his own limited reason compels man to 
believe in the existence of an unlimited one. The feeling 
of contradiction within himself leads him to the idea of a 
Being who is perfect unity. The idea of a Deity is not 
the product of perfect inquiry in the kingdom of nature, 
but the result of unsatisfied desire to comprehend nature 
to its uttermost limits. The idea of the existence of a 
Divine Being is not the result produced by the thinking 
mind, but proceeds from the vain strife with the limits 
which the fetters of man's body have placed upon his free 
thought." 

Rabbi Kohler says : "The more our views are enlarged, 
the more we have lifted ourselves out of a narrow, dark 
valley towards the height of knowledge, the niore gloriously . 
is the Divine revealed to us. Childish prejudices, small 
ideas, remain below us like mists and clouds of the valley ; 



276 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

an unsatisfied longing after the Good and True draws us 
continually towards God's throne, as long as earthly- 
desires do not cripple the wings of the spirit. ' ' In another 
place he says : " The more rays of light fall into the human 
heart, the more brightly will the glowing embers of dark 
belief break out into bright, cheerful flames, which only 
light and warm us, instead of igniting and destroying. 
The more human desires and sentiments find room in our 
mind, the more deeply and blissfully shall we recognize 
the power of God within us. Fear throws the Christian 
fettered and bound at the feet of God, whilst man lifts up 
his hands longingly towards the loving Father-" 

Johannes Ronge says, in his book on religion: "The 
Divine Spirit is the essence and life of nature, and works 
in it and through it according to eternal laws of universal 
love and universal wisdom. We call this work the divine 
providence. Within this divine providence are comprised 
all mankind, with body and soul. Man and mankind live 
and exist in it, and depend upon it, not, like animals and 
slaves, upon the will of their master, but united with God 
according to the law of nature and the spirit. God is the 
whole, and man only a part of the harmony of creation, 
but of equal essence with God. We proceed from God, 
and are the children of God, as Jesus taught us, and our 
being rests within his divine, primary existence. Paul, 
Plato and others taught, thousands of years ago, that we 
live and exist in God ; and the wisest men of our time 
have taught the same." 

A modern authoress, Mme. Sutro-Schuecking, says: 
"As the ligftt is necessary for the existence of everything, 
so God, the nameless, the ruler, the Perfect One, is to our 
soul. * I have always considered it vanity to dispute about 



• 



I 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 277 

the characteristics of the Deity, to try to fathom them, or 
to form positive 'opinions about them. That he exists is 
sufficient. We imagine we feel him within us, within 
creation, in the working of fate, everywhere. The manner 
in which he exists, this all-comprising, ruling spirit, 
whether we call him Jehovah, Allah, God, or Nature, is 
hidden from us mortals until our death. Why all this 
strife about the idea of the Perfect One, as he is recognized 
by all? In this conviction all mankind should lovingly 
meet, granting everybody the liberty to seek after truth as 
it suits his individual desire, yet bowing down reverently 
and humbly before the almightiness of the Highest. That 
would be the religion of the future, after which the noblest 
of every nation and every creed should strive." 

After the preceding expressions of noble men, I will 
give the opinion of one who had sunk very low. In the 
" New Pittaval," Vol. II., the trial of a certain Masch is 
mentioned, — a man who undoubtedly was one of the 
greatest criminals that ever lived. He had taken part in 
more than three hundred burglaries; six times he had 
been guilty of incendiarism ; more than twenty times he 
had attempted murder, and was guilty of twelve actual 
murders. And this man, who was intelligent, but in 
whom a human sentiment had never been aroused, whose 
eyes had never turned towards heaven, before his end 
acknowledged his fearful misdeeds and showed sincere 
repentance. He had found God. A few days before his 
death he expressed himself as follows: " If I had seen 
the sun and felt its warmth only one day of my life, and 
had never seen it again, nobody could convince me that 
the sun did not exist; my experience and life, since I 
have come to a knowledge of myself, are such that, how- 



278 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

ever many temptations may come, however anxious I may 
feel at times, nobody can take away my faith. Who does 
not believe in God is capable of everything, — even a mur- 
der is nothing to him." 



The belief in God and in his all-wise guidance is that 
which gives us a firm hold in all the changes of this life. 
If we throw it away or lose it, we are lost ourselves; but 
if we maintain it firmly in our heart, nothing that can 
happen to us can lead us astray from the path of righteous- 
ness or humiliate us. 

The ancients tell us the story of the giant Antaeus, who 
could not be conquered in wrestling, and who overcame 
all strangers who approached him, as long as he remained 
in contact with his mother, Earth, as long as he had a 
hold on her. Hercules had no difficulty in lifting him 
from the ground and strangling him. Thus it is with the 
firm hold which man has on God. As long as he clings 
to God he is armed against all enemies and invincible; 
but whosoever loses this hold, loses all safety and all feel- 
ing of safety. 

True love to our fellow-creatures is firmly rooted in the 
love of God and inseparable from it. Without the love 
of God, true love to our neighbor is impossible. 

God asks nothing from us but that we should faithfully 
and honestly fulfill our duty towards our fellow-creatures; 
that is the true worship of God ; — to act in such a manner 
that no justifiable reproach can be made to us, and to 
help the poor and those who suffer, and everybody who is 
in need of assistance, cheerfully, and as far as it is within 
our power to do. 






" 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 279 

The belief in God and in his wise guidance gives us 
strength and comfort in the hours of bitterest suffering, 
want and sorrow. A man clinging to the eternal God 
and believing in him can never despair; whilst he who 
seeks salvation in another belief, loses all hold in the 
hours of trial from which no man is spared. The suicide 
of thousands and thousands proves this again and again. 

He who believes himself, by himself, to be able to bear 
and to conquer the sorrows of life which no earthly man 
can evade, is mistaken, and will find, at last, that a higher 
power is necessary to help him, and that only the firm 
belief and confidence in God's fatherly love can conquer 
and overcome all obstacles. 

Man must arrive at the conviction that in all situations 
of his life a holy comfort fills his soul, the consciousness 
of complete dependence upon God, and of the closest 
union of his soul with God. 

God is not the severe, inaccessible judge who delights 
in condemnation ; he is not the idol which demands 
bleeding sacrifice, but a loving Father of man who, like 
a human father, is willing to pardon the faults of his chil- 
dren, and only asks that they repent of the wrong which 
they have done and try to amend themselves. 

God does not desire man to be gloomy ; those who are 
cheerful are his dearest children. 

He who knows that the all-knowing, fatherly eye 
watches over him, even in the dark, will be more righteous 
in his thoughts and actions than he who only fears the eye 
of man. The believer in God's fatherly love will be 
firmer and more courageous in misfortune, because he 
relies upon the almightiness and all-wisdom of God, who 
will control everything for the best. 



28o THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

That deep confidence in God which is rooted in the 
love of him, is our strongest hold. Man is easily inclined 
to despair, and when some misfortune happens to him he 
stretches his hands toward heaven and laments and asks: 
Why does this fate happen to me? But there is no fate 
except an all-loving Father, in whose hands grief and 
misfortune are changed to bright sunlight, which will 
bring peace to our soul and defy all storms. 

The duties of man towards God are nothing else than 
duties which spring from conviction. But the actions 
which proceed from these convictions are the actions of 
morality, which represents our duty towards ourselves and 
towards our neighbor. The duty of obedience is also a 
duty of sentiment towards God. As an action, the entire 
domain of morality depends upon it. 

Conscience is, so to speak, the inner organ of morality. 
Our relation to God is that of a child to its parent, and 
is the condition and origin of moral obedience. If God 
is love, then our loving activity cannot be imagined with- 
out our relation to God and his will ; when, like children, 
we cling to J^im, we live with him in true and lifelike 
communion Justice, truth, liberty, love, in fact all 
moral ideas to which we look upward, appear as divine 
examples which we try to imitate. 

There are men who intentionally reject the belief in 
God because it is an uncomfortable bridle upon their 
desires ; but millions carry the idea of God and immortality 
in their hearts, and cherish it as a precious possession in 
which they live and die. Blessed is that man who knows 
this feeling and nourishes it carefully. 

If we are once sure that there is a God, a living God, 
whom we know, and who knows us, a new life arises in 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 281 

us ; the whole universe becomes full of life, our existence 
hasan aim, our grief a remedy. We have a Lord who watches 
over us and helps us, and mankind is united in a common 
bond. 

Man rejoices in having an ideal before his eyes ; indeed, 
it is a necessity to him to have one upon every path of his 
life. He seeks something which unites all perfection 
within itself, and he finds it in the idea of a Supreme 
Being, in his view of God. 

If we strive after the ideal, we strive after the sublime. 
The sublimest ideal is God. All ideas which are revealed 
in the life of nature and of man have their origin in God. 
They are, as it were, divine ideals which have taken shape 
and have become real. The belief in a Supreme Being is 
a belief in a power which watches over us, and from whose 
influence we are never free from the day of our birth to our 
death, but are subject to it in every circumstance of life. 

To be happy we must, under all circumstances, preserve 
delight in nature, confidence in man and cheerfulness of 
mind. This we can do only if we preserve our unchange- 
able belief in the love of God. 

God is an inconceivable, eternal power which, accord- 
ing to unchangeable laws, penetrates the universe, every 
vein of our little earth, every pulse of the immeasurable 
life in the structure of the world. If we imagine that 
God, the spiritual power which rules the world, could be 
away or lost, the whole universe would fall into ruins. 
Matter alone, without spiritual unity and power, cannot 
exist. This is proved by the entire structure of the world. 

Living in God is the crown of human life, the highest 
aim of moral culture, the brightest blossom in which the 
germs of virtue strive to be developed. 



282 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

In the pure belief in God there are no sects, no over- 
bearing of one toward the other, because this revelation 
does not rest upon tradition, but lives distinctly in every 
one without further mediation, and because in the place 
where all men live together and recognize the equal rights 
of all, such overbearing is impossible. 

Death ! What a world of sorrow lies in this little word ! 
It is a two-edged sword which, while it takes what was 
dear to us, penetrates deep into < ur heart, so that our 
vision grows dim and the world appears shrouded in night, 
whilst the sun shines upon the path of millions of happy 
ones, scattering joy in all directions. Only one word, as 
short as this, gives us courage and breathes help, only 
one : God / 

God does not repose upon a distant, heavenly throne, 
letting the machinery of the world go blindly as it will; 
he himself is the moving power. His breath, his spirit, 
his hand, guide it in that mysterious manner which we 
mortals have tried in vain to fathom. And as he is re- 
vealed to us as wisdom and love in all the life of creation, 
in the history of man, in ourselves, in our heart, in our 
reason, if we strive to seek him and to find him, so it is his 
wisdom and love which have shaped the world from the 
beginning in such manner that everything is as it is, and 
cannot be otherwise ; which have foreseen and provided 
for everything from eternity. Everything is subject to 
him, the great, complete, wonderful God \ the world rests 
upon his loving heart. 

There are people who do not hesitate to make them- 
selves slaves of their fellow-creatures, who crawl before the 
rich and mighty for the sake of some worldly advantage, 
yet who will not humiliate themselves before God, to 



GOD AND THE WORLD. 283 

whom they owe everything. Foolish and graceless men ! 
Do not throw yourselves in the dust before idols and the 
mighty of this world; not before man, but before 
God, the eternal spirit and the ruler of the world. 
Before him you should humiliate yourselves, not before 
man. 

Humility before God creates a strong and proud heart 
before the rich and powerful ; whilst humility before man 
creates the soul of a slave. Throw yourself in the dust 
before Him who is your creator and preserver; before 
Him who is love, wisdom, and justice. He speaks to you 
in the whispering of the zephyrs of spring which refresh 
you, and in the lightning which scatters destruction; he 
speaks to you in the whispering of the child and in the 
howling of the storm. His voice is everywhere. It calls 
to you, " I am your God, to whom alone you owe thanks 
for all the good which life offers ; and I also hold over 
you my protecting hands in the hours of sorrow which I 
send." 

It is characteristic that, in most languages, the name of 
God is derived from the word £>w, which means to shine. 
And the idea of light is constantly united with the con- 
sciousness of God. Whatever words man may use to 
express the idea of a Supreme Being ; as, Primary Power, 
Primary Reason, Primary Spirit, Primary Being, Spirit of 
the World, Soul of the World, Spirit of Love, Chief 
Fountain of Life, Father of All, Creator of All, Father or 
God, — all these terms give only an imperfect idea of the 
Supreme Being ; and mortal man can only bow down in 
humility before the all-comprising grandeur and sublimity 
of the Supreme Being and worship him in spirit and in 
truth. 



284 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Goethe describes the being of the Eternal One in his 
" Faust," in the following words : 

" Who can name him, and, knowing what he says, 

Say, 'I believe in Him'? And who can feel, 

And, with self-violence, to conscious wrong 

Hardening his heart, say, « I believe him not ' ? 

The all-embracing, all-sustaining One, 

Say, doth he not embrace, sustain, include 

Thee? Me? Himself? Bends not the sky above ? 

And earth, on which we are, is it not firm? 

And over us with constant, kindly smile, 

The sleepless stars keep everlasting watch ! 

Am I not here gazing into thine eyes? 

And does not all that is — 

Seen and unseen, mysterious all — 

Around thee, and within, 

Untiring agency, 

Press on thy heart and mind ? 
Fill thy whole heart with it ; and when thou art 
Lost in the consciousness of happiness, — 

Then call it what thou wilt, 

Happiness ! — heart ! — love ! — God ! 
I have no name for it. Feeling is all; 
Name, sound and smoke, 
Dimming the glow of heaven! " 

And now, dear reader, I ask you once more the question 
on the title-page of this work : "Is there not a faith more 
sublime and blistful than Christianity ? " 



Jesus. 

Jesus was not God, and was God's son in no other 
sense than that in which all men are the children of 
God. He was a man like us, and, although infinitely 
superior, he was not without human weakness, which is 
particularly observable in his words : "O my Father, if it 
be possible let this cup pass from me!" and in his words : 
" My God ! my God ! why hast thou forsaken me?" 

The crown of mankind, and not that of God, belongs 
to Jesus ; and if the Church, after having placed the bloody 
crown of thorns upon his head, expects to honor him by 
elevating him to the Godhead, and placing him as far 
above mankind as an earthly prince believes himself to be, 
it is her fault that the blissful doctrine of love which Jesus 
taught has been degraded and concealed by dogmas and 
doctrines. The proof of this we find in all countries 
where Christianity prevails. 

The history of the thirty-three years of Jesus' life has 
come down to us in scanty and incoherent reports, which 
are partly legendary and partly so full of the supernatural, 
that, in proportion to his great importance, we really know 
very little about him. What we do know of him is per 
fectly sufficient to place him in a unique position in the 
history of the world and in the development of religious life. 

Information relating to Jesus written by himself does 
not exist, as he taught his disciples and the people by his 
spoken word only, as did Con-fu-tse and Buddha. 
Thomas Jefferson says, in his ' ' Memoirs," that it is a great 

(285) 



286 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

loss that Jesus did not write anything himself, and that 
his doctrines have come to us piecemeal and probably 
misunderstood. He purified the Jewish creed and taught 
the most perfect and sublime doctrine of morality which 
has ever been practiced on earth. It embraced all men, 
and united them into one family through the bonds 
of benevolence, love, common want and mutual assist- 
ance. But even since the time of the apostle Paul, the 
simple, sublime doctrine of Jesus has been artificially dis- 
figured. 

Among the disciples of Jesus, who were simple people 
from among the uneducated classes, was probably only 
one who was able to write, — namely, Matthew, who was a 
receiver of customs on the shores of the Lake of Galilee ; 
and thus it has happened that, besides the Gospel which 
he is sa d to have written, nothing in writing has come to 
us from the circle of his disciples. The history of Jesus 
is based upon tradition, and how uncertain, and how much 
subject to alterations such information as has reached 
posterity must be, will be doubted by nobody who con- 
siders how easy it is to disfigure even the news of the 
immediate past and the events of the present time. 
Besides this, the first Christians as well as the disciples 
were uneducated people, who were not always able to 
understand what Jesus said. In Jerusalem and Antioch, 
Christians converted from Judaism and heathenism, Peter 
and Paul, differ on the point of preserving certain Jewish 
customs. The Gospels, with the exception of that of 
Matthew, were probably written in the second century, 
and the writers were not immediate witnesses of Jesus' 
lif . They were written from verbal traditions only, after 
several generations had passed away, and with the evident 



JESUS. 287 

desire of creating Jesus a God. The accounts of the life 
of Jesus' which we find in the four Gospels cannot be relied 
upon, for the further reason that they differ from each 
other in many points. The family tree of Jesus in 
Matthew is entirely different from that given in Luke. In 
the account of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the 
Gospels differ considerably, and even contradict each other, 
so that it is almost impossible to recognize the facts. In 
the Gospel of John not a word is said about the Ascension, 
whilst Mark only mentions it in a few vague words. In 
Matthew x. 5 to 8, Jesus is reported to have said to the 
Apostles : " Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into 
any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go rather to 
the lost sheep of the house of Israel." In Mark xvi. 15, 
16, Jesus says : "Go ye into all the world and preach the 
Gospel to every creature ;" and in chap, xxviii. 19 Matthew 
contradicts himself by giving Jesus' commandment in 
these words: "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, 
baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost. ' ' These last words which Matthew 
puts into Jesus' mouth are the more incomprehensible, as 
only at the Council of Chalcedon, in the year 325, was the 
dogma of the divinity of Jesus accepted ; and only at the 
Council of Constantinople, in the year 381, was the dogma 
of the Holy Ghost promulgated. — a striking proof of the 
unreliability of the Gospels. We must consider, further, 
that Paul and the Evangelists took all the dogmas relating 
to Christ as the Messiah from Jewish cabalistic writings, 
particularly from the book Fiknua Sohar. From there 
come the doctrines of the Word having become flesh, of 
Jesus being the Son of God, of the eternity of the Messiah, 
of the two natures of the Messiah, of his sinlessness, his 



288 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

ascension, his sitting at the right hand of God, his ex- 
piation, and his office of judge of the world. 

We find nothing in the New Testament relating to 
Jesus' personal appearance, while other writers of the first 
century give some hints about it. Justinus the Martyr 
(in the year 150) said that his appearance was not attract- 
ive, and that it was by no means remarkable. Clemens 
of Alexandria (in the year 200) describes his appearance 
rather as repulsive than attractive. Tertullian (in the 
year 210) says he was not even possessed of ordinary 
beauty ; and Origen (in the year 230) declared that he 
was small and deformed, and that his beauty consisted 
only in his soul and in his life. Of course, all these de- 
scriptions are based only upon traditions of several gener- 
ations, and therefore are worthless; and as there exists 
no portrait of Jesus made during his lifetime, it is evident 
that all which exist, however high may be their artistic 
value, give no real likeness of Jesus, but only show the 
ideal which inspired the artists who painted them. 

As regards the doctrines of the Deity of Jesus, of his 
being the Son of God, of having been conceived in a 
supernatural manner by his mother, their origin may be 
traced to the belief in those times that the gods assumed 
human shape and cohabited with mortal women. The 
old mythology tells us that Jupiter impregnated hundreds 
of women, who gave birth to children of a superior nature. 
This belief was common among the Greeks and Romans. 
The Emperor Augustus pretended to be a son of Apollo, 
and Caligula a son of Jupiter. Tradition tells us that 
Buddha was begotten by a five-fold beam of light which 
fell upon Maja, the daughter of an Indian king. The 
Buddhist reformer Sunkaba came to life through his 



JESUS. 289 

mother, the wife of a poor shepherd, being suddenly seized 
by giddiness and falling upon a stone on which some 
sacred words were engraved. We know that not only 
Jews, but also heathen like the Greeks, accepted the doc- 
trine of Jesus. The Greeks took their Father of heaven, 
Theos, out of their old faith into the new ; and they could 
not refrain from replacing their Apollo by Jesus, so that 
their Theos, as God of the Christians, might also have a 
Son. 

Thus the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus has its origin 
in the old heathenism. There is no mention made of the 
divinity of Jesus in the first three Gospels, nor in the Acts 01 
the Apostles; nor is it mentioned in the Epistle of James. 
Jesus himself never uttered the thought that he was God, 
and only spoke of God in the sense that he was the 
Father of all mankind. When he calls God Father, it 
does not apply to his own person only, but to all men. 
He says: "Our Father which art in heaven:" your 
Father in heaven; "Be merciful like your Father in 
heaven; " and in the same sense he taught his disciples to 
pray, "Father, forgive us our trespasses." 

When Jesus said, "I and the Father are one" — which 
is explained by the Church as meaning that he is God — ■ 
he did not mean to say that he considered himself as God, 
but he wished to express the consciousness that he was one 
with the will of God. If you, dear reader, make use or 
the same expression, referring to yourself and your bodily 
father by saying, "I and my father are one," would you 
mean that you and your father are one and the same 
person? Surely not. You would only mean that you and 
your father are in perfect harmon). And in the same 
manner we must look at the expression of Jesus in which 

19 



290 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

he calls God his father, from a reasonable point of view. 
The Christian Church, in her desire to make Jesus God, 
overlooks or ignores completely that Jesus expressed him- 
self mostly in parables and metaphors. As such we must 
receive and explain many of his sayings. If we do this, 
Jesus will cease to be God, but will retain the true honor 
of having been an exemplary, sublime man, far beyond 
his time in his knowledge of God. That Jesus distinctly 
refused the idea of his own Godhead we find in his answer 
in Matthew xix. : "Why callest thou me good? There is 
none good but one, that is, God." 

Jesus has been called an originator of religion; but re- 
ligion, which is the principal foundation of all creeds, — 
namely, the belief in one Supreme Being, — cannot be 
originated, and is not in need of an originator, for it is 
deeply rooted in the heart of every man. But where 
religion has been injured and driven away by sectarian 
dogmas, it is owing to a want of reason, or to selfishness 
and passion. Jesus has also been called the Founder of 
Christianity, but he was not even this. Christianity was 
developed long after his death. Jesus himself was a Jew, 
a reformer of Judaism. He had made it his task to purify 
it from the drc ss which infected it. He wished to found 
upon earth a pure spiritual kingdom of God, not a secluded 
community to worship God in outward forms; and, in this 
respect, he was more than a reformer, he was an apostle 
for the whole world, the c?-eator of the religion of 
humanity ', in which all men, regardless of race, color 
or nationality, are equal and brethren. He established 
the right of liberty of conscience, and it was his desire 
to lead mankind back to the original freedom of natural 
laws. 



JESUS. 291 

Jesus was the first to proclaim: You must worship God 
in spirit and in truth. Upon these words is based the 
structure of eternal religion. He founded the pure venera- 
tion of God, — that which all pure souls, filled with a desire 
for the highest, will practice until the end of all time. An 
entirely new idea, — the idea of a worship of God based 
upon purity of the heart and brotherly love of all men,! — 
was brought into the world by him. He founded the great 
doctrine of the freedom of the spirit, which alone can give 
peace. 

Jesus knew no dogmas; nobody was ever less priestly 
than he. He who will convince himself that Jesus did not 
desire to be a priest nor to found a priesthood, he who 
will have a perfect idea of his humane character, — let him 
compare the mild doctrines which Jesus pronounced with 
the violent, hard, autocratic dogmas of the Fathers of the 
Church, of the popes, and of men like Calvin and Luther, 
who all seem to have acted upon the principle # that who- 
ever wishes to govern the spirit of men must frighten and 
crush them. Nobody was more adverse than Jesus to out- 
ward ceremonies, which, under the pretense of furthering 
religion, only too frequently injure and suppress it. Jesus 
despised everything that did not belong to the religion of 
the heart. He was totally opposed to hollow ceremonies 
and asceticism. He did not observe fasting. He preferred 
the forgiveness of wrong to a sacrifice. Love to God, 
love to our neighbor, mutual goodwill, — that was the 
whole of his law. 

The appearance of Jesus marks a new phase in the 
domain of trie spirit, the birth of a new view Gf the world, 
entirely different from that of antiquity. With his aim, 
the ennobling and perfecting of mankind, before him, he 



292 THE COMING CREE© OF THE WORLD. 

recognized with clear eye the fundamental evil and the 
principal defects of mankind. To struggle against sel- 
fishness was his principal task. In his simple words, 
" Love thy neighbor," there is more wisdom and more 
blissfulness for mankind than in all the writings of old and 
new teachers of the Church. 

Jesus was not visionary, nor a dreamer, but a friend of 
mankind, who taught active brotherly love. He was no 
hero in battle, nor a great statesman whose actions have 
revolutionized the world. Yet he who was born in a hut, 
of poor parents, occupies to-day, after nineteen centuries, 
a position which nobody before or after him ever at- 
tained. The more the sublime character of Jesus is puri- 
fied and delivered from the dross of the Church, the 
more we recognize in him, not Christ the God, but the 
sublime man Jesus, holding out his friendly hand to us, 
all the more lovable, all the more worthy of veneration 
must he and his doctrines become to us. 

We must be particular to distinguish between the Christ 
of the Church and the historical and ideal Jesus. The 
former is the symbol of blind, sterile belief; the latter, 
that of humanity extending bliss and happiness. The 
most striking features of the latter, of the ideal Jesus, are 
toleration, gentleness and love; whilst the Christ of the 
Church has been made the motive for persecution and 
fanaticism. 

Hofferichter says, in his " Life of Jesus : " " The great- 
ness and importance of Jesus' life are not in the fact that 
he has been worshiped as a God by later generations, that 
men have bent their knees before him as before a heavenly 
apparition ; but in this, — that he recognized religion as a, 
movement of the heart which cannot be forced; as a 






JESUS. 293 

blossom of the human spirit which can flourish only in 
freedom, which can ripen into beautiful, rich fruit only in 
the air cf freedom. He has demanded the right of self- 
determination for the fuller development of the human 
spirit, and has founded upon this self-determination the 
dignity of man, the idea of morality. Just because we see 
Jesus as a man, we place him so . high, he appears so 
worthy of admiration and veneration." 

And if Jesus were to return to earth to-day, how would 
he be received? Radenhausen, in his work on Christian- 
ity, replies to this question as follows : " In the first place, 
all churches would be closed to him as a teacher, because 
he was not an educated and ordained priest. He would 
not be permitted to hold mass-meetings, to teach his doc- 
trine, which would at once be declared as heretical and 
irreligious, because it is contradictory to the existing order 
of things and to the recognized dogmas of belief." 

This view is only too true; and we might add, that if 
Jesus were to return to this earth, he would be crucified 
again, and by those who worship him as a God and call 
themselves his disciples, while they persecute every one 
who believes differently with hatred and contempt. They 
would be the first to raise the murderous cry, " Crucify 
him ! Crucify him ! ' ' and they would not cease until their 
thirst for blood had been satisfied. 



The greater part of the life of Jesus, covering the time 
from his twelfth to his thirtieth year, is wrapped in com- 
plete darkness ; and the accounts of his death, as well as 
the circumstances surrounding the same, contain so much 
that is miraculous and supernatural, that it is difficult to 



294 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

determine what has really taken place. His birth and the 
events connected with the same are likewise hidden under 
the veil of myth, so that in this respect a clear, historical 
insight is unattainable. 

As regards the year of his birth, considerable doubt has 
arisen of late whether our Christian era does not begin 
five years too late, and we should count 1889, now, instead 
of 1884. Professor Sattler, of Munich, has lately suc- 
ceeded in establishing this as a positive fact ; also in fixing 
the date of his death, on the 7th of April, 783, after the 
foundation of Rome. 

The birth of Jesus seems to have taken place within the 
last years of the reign of Herod the Great. But it is 
scarcely credible that the twenty-fifth of December was 
the actual birthday of Christ. This date was not fixed 
until the fourth century as Christmas Day. 

All information is wanting in regard to the youth of 
Jesus from his twelfth to his thirtieth year. But if Jesus, 
as the Bible teaches us, was already, before his birth, ex- 
pected as a phenomenal appearance, so that the Wise 
Men of the East, guided by a star, came to worship the 
new-born King of the Jews, how could it be possible that 
his own parents, who surely must have known everything 
about the miraculous circumstances of his birth, were so 
little impressed by their importance, as must have been 
the case, in view of no mention relating to it ? How 
could it be possible that, when Jesus was twelve years old 
and preached in the temple, he was so unknown that all 
sorts of questions were addressed to him relating to his 
origin, his parents and his family? 

An impenetrable darkness covers the life of Jesus from 
his twelfth until his thirtieth year ; nor have we any 



JESUS. 295 

explicit information about his parents and his brothers and 
sisters. We possess only very scanty information upon 
this subject in the Apocrypha ; but what little they 
do tell us is so much interwoven with miracles, which 
have in their origin the motive to represent him as 
the Son of God, that very little reliance can be placed 
upon it. 

Even about the place of his birth the reports are con- 
tradictory. By some students Bethlehem is named, by 
others Nazareth. There are other contradictions and 
errors revealed in the New Testament. Matthew mentions 
the name of James as that of the father of Joseph. In 
Luke he is called Eli. One reckons fifty-six generations, 
and the other only forty-two. Matthew says that Joseph 
and Mary fled with the child to Egypt, whilst according 
to another Evangelist they remained in Judea. Luke 
knows nothing of Herod's persecution and the murder of 
the Innocents. Luke mentions a census which is said to 
have been taken under the Roman Pro-Consul Quirinius; 
but this census, according to the reliable Jewish historian, 
Flavius Josephus, was not taken until ten years later. The 
legend of the Wise Men from the East seems to have 
originated from an image representing the birth of the 
Persian God of the Sun and Redeemer, Mithra. Such an 
image, carved in stone, has been found in the catacombs 
of Rome, representing the mother with the child Mithra 
in her lap. The child's head is surrounded by a halo. 
Three men are kneeling before her ; they are dressed in 
Persian garments and offer presents ; a star is visible on 
one side. As the Christians have celebrated the twenty- 
fifth day of December as the birthday of Jesus, — which is 
also the birthday of Mithra, — there can be no doubt 



296 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

that the entire legend of the Wise Men of the East 
is not of Christian origin, but proceeds from Persian 
mythology. 

Christianity teaches that Jesus was born without sin, and 
like no other man, and contrary to the laws of nature, and 
that he was free from all human weakness. If this really 
was the case, if he was a god, how can his purity and his 
virtue be considered as something peculiar, something 
excellent and glorious? He could not be otherwise. But 
if he was a man, he must have had human failings; and 
the Evangelists say themselves that on different occasions 
he showed grief, anxiety, vexation and wrath; that is to 
say, human weakness. This human weakness was shown 
most completely when he prayed to God before his death, 
" Father, all things are possible unto thee: take away this 
cup from me. ' ' He expressed thus the wish that he might 
be spared the pain which was before him. And even on 
the cross he exclaimed, "My God ! my God ! Why hast 
thou forsaken me?" — a proof that he was sensible to the 
agonies of death. How different, how much more sublime 
and heroic, was the death of the great Grecian philosopher 
Socrates! He also died as a martyr of a purer doctrine. 
He was condemned to take the poisoned cup, and emptied 
it not only without complaint, but with the greatest joy- 
fulness and peace of mind, conversing with his disciples, 
who surrounded him. 

But even his failings cannot darken the divine idea of 
Jesus. Through these failings he beams upon us in the 
fullest and purest light. The deepest conviction of the 
existence of God, the purest sincerity, the most perfect 
confidence in God, the most complete self-denial, the 
highest moral purity and the most genuine piety, were alive 



JESUS. 297 

in Jesus. These characteristics appear in all his sayings 
and actions. And with all he was mild, benevolent, self- 
sacrificing, of cheerful temperament, and animated by the 
most ideal love for mankind. And in this love for man- 
kind, in connection with the prophecies of the Old Testa- 
ment, the belief in his mission as Messiah had its origin. 
As Jesus was a child of his people and of his time, we 
cannot be astonished when we find in them the firm ex- 
pectation of his early return, and the belief in the power 
and glory to erect the kingdom of the Messiah, which 
was to make all mankind happy. And this belief, and the 
later disappointment, again prove that Jesus was not free 
from human weakness. 

A clergyman in Hessia, Elssner, has lately published a 
work in which he speaks of Jesus as follows: " Jesus ap- 
pears as a man who has given a new religious, moral form 
to the world, who has conceived and proclaimed the 
eternal religion of the Spirit, who lighted the light of 
spiritual revelation, that it might shine through the dark- 
ness of night in which the nations were walking. He has 
tried to elevate degraded humanity to the freedom of the 
children of God. He has torn in pieces the veil in which 
selfish, deceitful priests have shrouded religion. He has 
put aside the dead letter of the law, however sacred it 
might appear, with its ceremonies and sacrifices, its rites 
and its priesthood, and replaced it by a doctrine the purity 
and simplicity of which surpass everything which the wise 
men of all times have ever produced. He has indicated, 
as the true essence of all religion, perfect equality of all 
and the eternal law of love." 

If we turn now to Jesus' activity as a teacher, we must 
connect him with John the Baptist. John preached re- 



298 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

pentance, the kingdom of heaven, and baptized all those 
who acknowledged it. Among those who followed the 
call of John was Jesus, who also repented and was baptized. 
He was deeply impressed by the words and annunciations 
of John. He fled from the human crowd to be alone with 
himself and his thoughts, and went into the desert. When 
he had collected himself in solitude, and regained com- 
plete peace of mind, and returned, he received the news 
that John had been beheaded and had become a victim to 
his noble calling. Who was to be John's spiritual heir ? 
Who should carry further his message? This question 
decided the future of Jesus. He felt called upon to be 
John's successor and to continue his work, and now he 
began to preach, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is 
at hand." His words, so simple and yet so powerful, in- 
spired the people, but made the Pharisees, scribes and 
priests his enemies. Jesus was different from them. His 
wcrds and his actions were in harmony, whilst the former 
clung to the word, but did not act accordingly. Therefore 
the people rushed to him ; and, remembering the sayings 
of the prophets and the preaching of John, they recog- 
nized in him the promised Messiah who was to deliver 
Israel. 

The Jewish origin of Jesus can be recognized in his 
sayings. They bear the rabbinical stamp, and his doc- 
trine is founded principally upon that which he had ap- 
propriated during his study of the Talmud. With a 
decided will and unfailing judgment he gathered from the 
Talmud the pearls which it contains ; and as a preacher 
for the people he knew how to present them in graphic 
description to the minds of his hearers. But Jesus taught 
a doctrine which was opposed to the Jewish creed, which 



JESUS. 299 

was founded upon the principle that God is not only the 
Lord of Israel, but the Father of all men, and that all 
men are brethren. The doctrine of Jesus is contained in 
the idea of the worship of God in spirit and in truth; not 
in fine words, but in good actions; in the sanctification 
of our soul and of our whole life ; in the perfect devotion 
to a divine providence ; in repentance for sin ; in cheer- 
ful forgiveness, and in the belief in a heavenly Father and 
brotherly love. He would not allow the meanest to be 
despised ; and, about the observance of the Sabbath, he 
taught that the Sabbath was for man, not man for the 
Sabbath. About the being and destiny of man he 
preached : You are the sons and children of God, 
proceeding from the Spirit of God. He indicated 
death as a transition to a higher existence. He called 
the universe the word of God and supported by 
his spirit; the kingdom of heaven he explained as a 
state of spiritual existence which we can acquire here, 
and which we can make our own by love, justice and 
virtue. 

How sublime and lofty are his sayings: " Love your 
enemies." " Bless them that curse you." " Do good to 
them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully 
use you and persecute you." "When thou doest alms, 
let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." 
"Judge not, that ye be not judged." "All things what- 
soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so 
to them." "Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, 
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that 
doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." " Son, 
be of good cheer : thy sins are forgiven thee." " Honor 
thy father and thy mother." " Thou shalt love the Lord 



300 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy might." " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself." " First cast the beam out of thine own eye, 
and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote of thy 
brother's eye." "Not seven times, but until seventy 
times seven shalt thou forgive." " Let your communica- 
tion be Yea, yea, and Nay, nay, for whatsoever is more 
than these cometh of evil." "What you have done to 
the poor and sick and suffering, ye have done it unto 
me." Wisdom and kindness are the contents of the 
Sermon on the Mount. And can there be more beautiful 
parables than those of the Prodigal Son and the Good 
Samaritan ? 

The philosopher Buisson, who lived in the last century, 
says, in connection with Jesus' Sermon on the Mount : 
"When Jesus thus speaks to us, it is not necessary to add 
dogmas and miracles for the purpose of making us believe 
in these divine words. It is sufficient to possess a human 
heart. From the words: 'Blessed are they that mourn,' 
to where he says : ' Father, forgive them : they know not 
what they do,' — all this is not enough for you, all this is 
not sufficiently divine for you. You want to have more. 
You must have something that speaks to your senses — an 
angel, a voice from out the air, water changed into wine, 
etc. A seeming disorder in nature has more effect on 
you than the eternal order. A fig-tree which suddenly 
withers and dies tells you something ; a lily in the field, 
which unfolds itself in modest splendor, tells you nothing. 
The sun which stands still at the bidding of a human 
being, seems to you more wonderful than the sun and all 
the worlds which through infinite space follow the eternal 
harmony of motion set down by God. A simple school- 



JESUS. 301 

child now-a-days, at an early age, learns to discredit 
and ridicule the miracles with which the history of all old 
nations abounds ; but it is expected to make an exception 
in the case of Jewish history, and to believe in the mira- 
cles which are mentioned in the Bible." 

We have already mentioned that many expressions of 
Jesus must only be taken figuratively; for instance, 
Matthew v. 29, 30, 39 and 40, "And if thy right eye 
offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for 
it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should 
perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into 
hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and 
cast it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one 
of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole 
body should be cast into hell. ,, "Whosoever shall smite 
thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." 
"And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away 
thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." — Chap. xix. 24: 
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of 
God." — Chap. x. 34: "I came not to send peace, but a 
sword ; " and others. In the last-mentioned place he 
says: "I have not come to bring peace, but the sword." 
This can only be taken in the sense of the spiritual sword, 
not the weapon of war, which is intended to take man's 
life. If Mark (xvi. 16) lets Jesus say, " He that believeth 
and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not 
shall be damned" we cannot comprehend this, in view 
of the mild nature of Jesus, and must consider these 
words an addition of the Evangelist. It has been 
stated in the beginning of this chapter that in many 
respects the Evangelists cannot be relied upon. The 

\ 



302 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

sayings of Jesus, taken all in all, prove clearly and irrefu- 
tably that he was not filled with hatred, but only with love, 
and that he did not look upon human misery as a punish- 
ment inflicted by a cruel Supreme Being thirsting for 
blood and vengeance. He had completely overcome the 
harsh representation of old Israel. In his faith there lived 
cnly a loving, patient and kind God, and he advised men 
to lay the foundation of their welfare by brotherly love 
and righteousness. 

The Evangelists are very anxious to relate miracles 
which Jesus is said to have performed, or which are other- 
wise connected with his person. We are told that he was 
born of a virgin, and that his birth was announced by the 
appearance of a star. It is said that he cured the blind, 
and the deaf and dumb, the lame and the lepers, by a 
mere word, or by the touching of his garment, and that he 
even raised the dead. Thousands of hungry people he fed 
with a few loaves ; he made wine out of water. He walked 
upon the waters, and calmed the tempest by threats. He 
sent a miraculous catch into the net of the fishermen, and 
made the barren fig-tree wither and die suddenly by a 
mere word. At his death the sun is said to have been 
darkened, and the earth to have trembled, and the rocks 
to have split open. In the hour of his deat. the veil in 
the temple of Jerusalem was torn in twain. After he had 
been buried, he is said to have risen again, and to have 
lived forty days on earth, and then to have ascended into 
heaven. 

That Jesus effected the cure of sick people can be believed 
without considering it a miracle. It is possible, and has 
been established as an historical fact, that such cures have 
not only been performed by the followers of Jesus, but by 



JESUS. 303 

his enemies. But when Jesus accompanied these cures 
with such words as "Thy faith hath made thee whole," 
he only wished to indicate that the origin of these cures 
was not in a miraculous power within himself, but in the 
spiritual state of the patients. 

To explain these miracles — which has frequently been 
attempted by Christian priests — would be to attribute an 
importance to them which they no longer possess in the 
nineteenth century. They can be easily explained by the 
fact that at the time of Jesus, as is plainly shown in the 
New Testament, mankind was absolutely greedy after 
miracles. It saw, and wanted to see, a miracle in 
everything. It would not believe anything unless it 
was shrouded in the cloak of a miracle. And should we 
be astonished that such things occurred nineteen hundred 
years ago, when we see that even to-day, and in civilized 
countries, there are many people who still believe in 
miracles; and when, to this day, the Christian priests 
proclaim these miracles as truth, and thus mislead and 
stupefy the people ? 

Let us now take a brief review of the doctrine of Jesus. 
The doctrine of Jesus is not founded alone upon a deep 
knowledge of human nature, but, more than any other, it 
is adapted to human wants. It contains everything that 
man needs to guide him in a path of life, according to his 
nature and his destiny. It does not offer him only dry 
doctrines, which he has no inner desire to follow, but ir 
speaks to his soul, it warms his heart, by appealing not 
only to his reason, but to his moral nature. The doctrine 
of Jesus remains the sublimest creation which has evei- 
proceeded from the human mind. It is the most b^auti^ 
ful code of laws which has ever been established. Not by 



304 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

his death, but by his doctrine of love, Jesus has become 
the Redeemer of mankind. 

The poetical legend of the Bible tells us how a star an- 
nounced to the Wise Men of the East the birth of Jesus ; 
thus the teaching of Jesus is a shining star which leads us 
to the sanctuary of humanity. The word of Jesus, when 
it was first heard, appeared like lightning in the darkness 
of night ; and if it has not yet grown to the full light of 
day, it surely will be so ; and when mankind has passed 
through all the paths of error, it will return to his word 
as the immortal expression of its belief and its hope. 

Rothe says : " The great and lasting attainments which 
mankind, on its path, will reach, will be the echo of the 
voice of a Man known to only a limited circle, who had 
no power, no position, no wealth and no learning; a 
voice, which was heard eighteen hundred years ago, of one 
who lived but a short time, who has left us the power and 
depth of his love of God and man. In this way Jesus has 
given to the mortals of this world his own pure views of 
the being of God." 

Kalthoff says, in his "Life of Jesus:" "Place before 
men an ideal of virtue as high as you like, you can only 
inspire them with enthusiasm when you show them men 
who have devoted themselves entirely to its service. 
Abstract truth cannot get hold of the heart. Men are re- 
quired who have striven after truth, in which this abstract 
truth has become reality and purity of character, and has 
assumed a concrete form. And who can show us a man 
who more vigorously and more purely has striven after the 
moral ideal thai\ Jesus ?" 

Renan concludes his " Life of Jesus " with the follow- 
ing words : " Jesus does not belong to those alone who 



JESUS. 305 

call themselves his disciples. He is the common honor of 
all who have a human heart in their bosom. His glory- 
does not consist in this — that he is excluded from history ; 
a greater honor is done to him when we prove that history 
without him is incomprehensible. " 

The doctrine of Jesus is the gospel of all mankind. 



Prayer. 

What is prayer? It is a living form and offspring of 
faith, by which we open our minds to the fountain-head 
of all life, all reason and all good, to the always ready 
help of God, to the always present influence of his spirit. 

The late Frederick Muench, who has spoken and written 
so many good and true words, expressed himself in his 
later years as follows : "If man, in full consciousness of 
his earthly joy, in the rejoicing over an unhoped-for hap- 
piness or an unexpected assistance, looks gratefully up 
toward the only source of his existence, to that love 
which comprises all life, which fills the whole universe, 
there could be no insincerity in this sentiment. Nor 
could we suppress our natural instinct, when, surrounded 
by dangers against which our weakness is of no avail, or 
in any other period of distress, we throw ourselves, as it 
were, into the arms of the Almighty, like a child in trou- 
ble and anxiety clinging to the arm of its father. Nor is 
it self-deception, if, in contemplation of the splendor, the 
glory and infinite greatness of nature, we are overcome 
by our feelings and kneel down in prayer before that 
almighty spirit which we can only imagine, before that 
wisdom which reveals itself in the greatest as well as in the 
smallest. And it is no deception if the guilty man, under 
the pressure of the deepest shame and repentance, turns 
his eyes upward and asks imploringly for forgiveness which 
no man can grant him, and for strength to do good which 
no man can bestow upon him." 

(306) 



PRAYER. 307 

Above all, we must gain the conviction that it is not 
God who. is in want of our prayer, but ourselves; for 
prayer is the most important, the surest, if not the only 
effectual means of vivifying our moral sense, the power to 
do our duty and the active love for our fellow-creatures. 
Prayer makes us free ; it calms the troubled heart bowed 
down by grief and anxiety ; it protects us against impure 
and sinful thoughts. And if the human heart is laden 
with heavy guilt, or with a wrong which unceasingly tor- 
ments and troubles it and embitters life, how soothing will 
be the effect of the simple words with which we turn to 
God : " Forgive us our trespasses ' ' ! 

Glorious and powerful is the effect of prayer in the hour 
of grief, when it purifies us from the dross of life and 
draws us into the purest sphere of the Supreme Being, who, 
full of mercy and compassion, looks down upon all human 
weaknesses and passions. Great is the power of prayer 
for the sick and suffering. It will not remove bodily pains, 
but it will teach us patience and humble contentment with 
the will of the Almighty. God is our best friend and 
counselor in all that touches us joyfully or painfully. 
We can trust only to him in our highest happiness and our 
most profound sorrow. 

Jesus has taught us how to pray, — not with words, not 
with the thoughtless reading or repeating of certain forms 
which the Church has taught, and which has been degraded 
to a shallow habit that is likely to lead us to hatred and 
contempt of prayer, and that robs it of all blissful results. 
We should pray in our thoughts which come from the 
heart ; these thoughts are like the angels which, according 
to the beautiful biblical legend, were seen by Jacob in his 
dream ascending toward heaven. 



308 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The most beautiful and precious gift which Jesus has 
left us, which unites man with God by a bond of love, is 
the exquisite prayer which begins with the words "Our 
Father." If we turn to God with this prayer, with all our 
heart and mind, our soul will open, and faith, hope, 
charity and courage will enter into it. 

Many people think that man is not in need of prayer, 
because God, without our praying, knows what we desire 
and what we need. That sounds very well, but, after all, 
it is nothing but the result of human selfishness, which 
wants to obtain certain benefits, but will not bow down 
before God and thank him for them. Foolish men ! 
Does the bodily father not know the wants of his child ? 
and, for that reason, should a child never turn to his fat er 
to express a wish ? Tear the bond of love, and you tear 
the child from his father's heart; you drive him out into 
the cold, strange world, and rob him of the blissful feeling 
of love. 

And are there not many things which torment your 
heart and trouble it, where human help is of no avail ? If 
one of your beloved ones lies on a sick-bed, and you 
gather the most experienced doctors around him, will you 
not turn in prayer to the Eternal Father and ask : " Save 
him " ? Or if your child, on whom you hang with all your 
heart, and whom you would see happy and good, — if this 
child is led astray, and your admonitions are of no avail, 
will you not turn to God with the prayer to lead him back 
to the right path ? Such a prayer of the crushed heart has 
often been fulfilled. 

What a mighty assistance is prayer in the education of 
children from their tenderest age ! We should not fill 
their heads with irrational dogmas, which is too frequently 



PRAYER. 309 

the case; but we should impress the child, from its earliest 
age, with the idea that there is a Supreme Being, to whom 
it must look up with reverence and whose blessing it must 
implore. That is a much better, more reasonable and 
effective means than severity, scolding and violence. 
And if these means are neglected, this neglect will be 
avenged in after years; for those who have been educated 
without being impressed with the benefit of prayer, have 
often become ungodly and unhappy people. I remember 
a man who, a short time ago, complained to me of the 
disobedience and waywardness of his son; and he added, 
"I have beaten the boy many times, but it does no 
good." When I asked him: "Have you ever prayed 
with your child?" he cast down his eyes and was silent. 
How many parents, like this man, think that they can 
educate their children by degrading ill-usage ! A fatal 
mistake ! Only love and, from its earliest childhood, the 
impression upon the mind of the child to turn toward 
God, will enable us to educate good men — not severity 
and ill- treatment, which only harden the character. There 
are families in which corporal punishment is considered 
the essence of education. The result is that they become 
more degraded from day to day. And there are families 
where a harsh or unkind word is never heard, and where 
the children steadily progress toward the good and right- 
eous. In this instance, love and moral earnestness, which 
are self-conscious of their duty, are the educators. 

The scientist and philosopher, Gotthilf Heinrich Schu- 
bert, speaks of prayer as "the family remedy for every 
circumstance of the mind and the body, strengthening, 
cheering and comforting. The family remedy, which our 
forefathers used at the beginning and at the end of the 



310 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

day's work; which kept them healthy and strong in spirit, 
and led them on their pilgrimage, has unfortunately dis- 
appeared in these days. Formerly, even kings and heroes 
were not ashamed to begin their tasks with prayer, and 
were glad to acknowledge this." 

Oh ! it was a beautiful, sublime and blissful habit, when 
the head of the family, the rich as well as the poor, began 
the day's work with a prayer, in which wife and children 
and servants — the entire household — joined. To-day many 
a one smiles contemptuously at this habit of former days; 
but this united beginning of the day's work had a most 
blissful influence on all who took part in it; it was a pledge 
of union and peace; and, in those days, there were fewer 
unhappy marriages and wayward children. 

This beautiful custom prevailed in my father's house; 
and to my last breath I shall not forget an incident which 
took place there. My mother was dead, and my father, 
a cheerful, pious old man, my young wife and myself, lived 
together. One morning, when my father entered the room 
and had pleasantly saluted my wife, we sat down to prayer. 
W hilst he was praying I noticed that his voice grew weaker 
and weaker. "Let me finish the prayer, father," I said; 
but he, conscious of his approaching end, and wishing to 
continue his prayer until the last moment, merely shook 
his head. His voice sank lower and lower. I embraced 
him: he pressed my hand and closed his eyes forever. 
The last w rd on his lips was a prayer. Whoever has 
seen, as I have, a man dying in prayer, can form an 
idea of the high dignity, the sanctity and the bliss- 
fulness of it. 

Yet many people are ignorant of this blessing. Any 
one who has been a witness of a scene in which the lives 



PRAYER. 311 

of many people were in danger, will see how even those 
who have never prayed before, and have sneered and 
laughed at those who prayed, have knelt down and stretched 
their hands toward God and implored him to help them; 
and how the scoffers and scorners showed themselves at 
such a moment as the greatest cowards, whilst those who 
were filled with a blissful confidence in God and content- 
ment with his will, remained calm and courageous. There 
is an old saying that necessity teaches us to pray; but 
those are to be pitied whom despair and want have to drive 
to prayer. How many thanks do we owe to God for all 
the good which he has done for us ! And should our heart 
not tell us to offer a prayer of thanks to the Giver of all 
these blessings? Prayer has a great and blissful influence, 
whether it is a prayer to ask a blessing, or to return thanks. 
When fear, anxiety, wrath, need, grief and care, fill your 
heart, then turn to God and open it before him. Then 
you will find peace ; your anxiety and fear will give place 
to new confidence and courage ; he will show you a way 
out of your grief and need; your anger will be softened 
and your sorrows will be comforted. And if at night you 
turn restlessly on your bed, and can find no sleep in your 
excitement, then turn to God, then pray. Prayer has a 
wonderfully soothing power — much more so than all the 
remedies which physicians might order, which only affect 
the body, and have nothing to do with the soul. 

Prayer brings peace to our minds ; and the peace of the 
heart leads to all that is good. What we feel in our 
innermost hearts cannot deceive ; and the millions of 
hands, sighs and prayers which, for thousands of years 
past, have been lifted and sent up to God, cannot have 
been directed into empty space. 



312 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

I will quote a few sayings of celebrated men, expressing 
their opinion on prayer. The excellent Theodore Parker, 
who had to suffer so much on account of his free and fear- 
less mind, in a letter to a friend, in February, 1859, wrote 
as follows : " To me, prayer is a natural and most delight- 
ful exercise. It is this : I feel conscious of the presence 
of the infinite power, mind and love which makes and 
governs the universe ; I feel that it is close to me. Then, 
conscious of that dear presence, I think over the blessings 
I have, and the use I make of them. I remember the 
wrong things I have done and I think of the right things 
I ought to do ; I recollect my joys and my sorrows, my 
hopes and my fears. So my prayer is an act of gratitude, 
of penitence (if I have done wrong), of aspiration and of 

joy." 

In his "Lectures on Religion," Dr. S. Stern says: 
"We have often been asked what is the real object of 
prayer. We praise the greatness and splendor of God. 
Do we think that our weak words can glorify Him whose 
praise the whole universe sings without ceasing? We 
thank him for the blessings which he has bestowed upon 
us. If the gratitude is in our hearts, he has recognized it 
before we have expressed it with our lips ; but if it is only 
on our lips, dare we attempt to deceive the Omniscient ? 
We implore him for help and assistance, that he may send 
down his blessings, and that he may keep us from evil. 
Can we, by the words of our mouth, shake the determi- 
nation with which in his wisdom he rules the world? 
Finally, we acknowledge our sins, and ask for mercy and 
forgiveness from him, the almighty and all-loving Father. 
But he has long known what we are about to confess; and 
what we implore he has granted long before, if we have 



PRAYER. 313 

turned toward him with full repentance. There is only 
one form of true prayer — the longing sigh, the unspeak- 
able desire for closer, more spiritual union with the Being 
of the Godhead." 

The well-known Abbe Lamennais expressed himself as 
follows: " Does not your heart feel easier, your soul more 
satisfied, after you have prayed? Prayer makes us feel 
less the grief which affects us, and enjoy more purely the 
blessings which are granted to us. It gives us additional 
strength to bear the former, and mixes a heavenly perfume 
with the latter. What are you doing here on earth ? — and 
have you nothing to ask of Him who has placed you here? 
You are travelers who are seeking a home. Do not go 
your way with head bowed down : lift up your eyes to see 
the right way. Heaven is your home ; and if you look 
toward heaven, is there nothing that moves within you? 
Is there no desire within you ? — or has this desire been 
quieted ? There are many who say, ' What is the use of 
prayer ? God is too great, ^00 high above us, to listen to 
such miserable creatures.' But who has created these 
miserable creatures ? Who has given them feeling, thought 
and speech, if not God himself? And if he has been so 
good to us, will he leave us and drive us away ? Indeed, 
I tell you, whoever says in his heart that God despises his 
own work, blasphemes God. • There are others again who 
say, 'What is the use of prayer? Does not God know 
better than we what we want ? ' God does know better 
than you, but he desires that you should ask him for it ; 
for God himself is your first want, and to pray to him 
means to begin to own him. The father knows the wants 
of his child ; but should that prevent the child from say- 
ing a word of thanks or prayer to his father ? The wind 



314 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

blows over the fields and withers the plants so that they 
bow down to the ground; but, refreshed by the dew, they 
lift up their thirsty heads again. There are scorching 
winds that pass over the soul of man and wither it." 

These are the thoughts of three well-known and cele- 
brated men — one a Protestant, the other a Jew, and the 
third a Catholic. They do not all agree in details, but 
they all agree in this — that prayer is a necessity for the 
human heart, and that it has a blissful effect upon man. 

But there are foolish and superstitious prayers. Who- 
ever expects from God supernatural effects, either direct 
— that is to say, that the order of nature should be sus- 
pended for the benefit of the supplicant — or indirect — 
namely, to try and induce God to interfere with nature's 
laws in order to please an individual or nations — proves 
that he has no idea of God's greatness and the unchange- 
able laws of the universe. Such cases frequently occur ; 
as when a church-community prays God to send rain for 
the benefit of the harvest. In some countries they make 
processions and pilgrimages for such purposes. The ful- 
fillment of such a prayer would be in contravention of the 
laws of nature. In another parish, which is perhaps not 
many miles distant from the first, the very opposite con- 
ditions may prevail : whilst the former are in want of rain, 
the harvest of the other may suffer from too much. 
Indeed, it is scarcely possible to believe that in civilized 
countries there are people who are so foolish, who have 
so little idea of God and the world, as to think that such 
prayers will be granted. 

But it is not only the uneducated classes of the com- 
munity that commit such acts of folly : it is their priests ; 
for the communities themselves can do nothing without 



PRAYER. 315 

their direct co-operation. It is not more than ten years 
ago that, not a single priest, but a Conference of the Dio- 
cese of Unterwalden, in Switzerland, ordered six pro- 
cessions to St. Anthony for the purpose of allaying a 
cattle-disease. 

Even Luther prayed at a time of continued drought as 
follows: "We pray so much for rain, and we have 
prayed so often ; and if thou dost not grant our prayer, 
the godless will say that thy dear Son has lied ; for he 
has said : ' What you ask of the Father in my name, he 
will grant unto you.' And they would accuse thee and 
thy dear Son of lying. I know that we cry unto thee 
from the depth of our hearts. Why dost thou not listen 
to us?" If Luther lived to-day, he would pray very 
differently. 

And we have astounding proofs that there are to this 
day, not only among the uneducated, but among the 
clergy, men who entertain these absurd ideas of the effi- 
cacy of prayer ; and we find them even among the learned. 
Professor Brooks, in Phelps, N. Y., toward the end of 
November, 1882, shortly before the transit of Venus took 
place, addressed a request to the churches to provide 
special prayers for clear weather on the day of the transit, 
the 6th of December. 

Lord Palmerston gave an excellent reply to the Scotch 
clergy in 1853, when they requested the Government to 
order a day of general fasting and penitence, to allay the 
plague of the cholera, which was then raging in Great 
Britain. He returned their request with the reply that 
the conditions of this world depended upon natural laws, 
and the welfare of mankind depended again upon the 
observation of these laws. The principal remedies against 



316 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

the spreading of the cholera were cleanliness, light, air 
and wholesome food, which would act more effectively 
than fasting. Activity is better than penitence. It was 
now autumn ; and, before the heat returned, sufficient 
time would elapse to extirpate the causes of the plague, 
particularly by an improvement in the dwellings of the 
poor. If this were done, all would be well; else the 
cholera would surely come again, in spite of all praying 
and fasting of a united but inactive nation. 

The times when natural phenomena, such as inunda- 
tions, earthquakes, bad harvests, fire and epidemics, were 
considered as a punishment of God for our trespasses, have 
fortunately ceased, or are near extinction ; and, with 
them, the belief in miracles and wonders will soon be- 
come a thing of the past. 

But, besides these foolish and superstitious prayers, 
there are some equally unworthy and godless. Among 
these, the most repulsive is that false service of God in 
which a Te Deum is chanted after a battle, when thou- 
sands of victims and mutilated men are lying on the field; 
or when two nations war with each other, and the priests 
of both pray for victory instead of for peace. 

Another equally godless prayer is that for a "plentiful 
stranding," which was often heard in former days in the 
churches of the " Frische Nehrung. " What is the meaning 
of a prayer for a plentiful stranding? The Frische Neh- 
rung is a narrow strip of land which stretches between 
the "Frische Haffe," in East Prussia, and the Baltic, and 
which is inhabited by poor fishermen. This small strip 
of land is of great danger to mariners, and frequent ship- 
wrecks occur near that spot. The prayer for a plentiful 
stranding means nothing but that ships shall perish there, 



PRAYER. 3I7 

that the inhabitants may get possession of the cargo of the 
wreck. Is it possible that a priest can lend himself to 
utter such an ungodly prayer? 

A clergyman has frequently advertised in the public 
press to pray for any particular purpose at the cheap rate 
of seventy-five cents per prayer. The name of this "rev- 
erend " gentleman is William Marshall, of Clark County, 
Kentucky. 

The Archpriest Popoff published in the year 1880, in 
Perm, Russia, a <•' practical" prayer, in which he gives 
instructions to what saints certain prayers should be ad- 
dressed. Amongst these we find appropriate prayers for 
those who wish to be advanced in public service, to obtain 
a situation, to buy goods cheap and sell them dear, to 
discover a thief, to marry a daughter quickly and profit- 
ably, to allay the devil and evil spirits, etc. The author 
of this book, as we have said before, is a priest of high 
standing in the Greek Church. 

One of the most revolting prayers that ever passed the 
lips of man was found among the effects of a certain John 
Ward, a miser, who died about thirty years ago in Hack- 
ney, England. The prayer, which is written in his own 
handwriting, reads as follows : " O Lord ! thou knowest 
that I have nine estates in the city of London, and like- 
wise that I have lately purchased an estate in fee-simple in 
the County of Essex; I beseech thee to preserve the two 
counties of Middlesex and Essex from fire and earth- 
quakes ; and as I have a mortgage in Hertfordshire, I beg 
of thee to have an eye of compassion on that county ; and 
for the rest of the counties, thou mayest deal with them 
as thou art pleased. O Lord ! enable the banks to answer 
all their bills, and make my debtors good men. Give a 



318 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

prosperous voyage and return to the Mermaid sloop, be- 
cause I have insured it ; and as thou hast said the days of the 
wicked are but short, I trust in thee that thou wilt not for- 
get thy promise, as I have purchased an estate in rever- 
sion, which will be mine upon the death of that profligate 
young man, Sir I. L . Keep my friends from sink- 
ing, and preserve me from thieves and housebreakers j 
and make all my servants so honest and faithful that they 
may attend to my interests, and never cheat me out of my 
property, night or day." 

A few years ago, a public service was held every Wed- 
nesday in the business-part of New York which was at- 
tended principally by men of business. It occurred 
frequently that letters from near and far were sent to these 
prayer-meetings to ask for prayers for certain purposes. 
About one hundred of these letters arrived in one day. 
Some of these written requests asked for prayers for the 
conversion of those belonging to another denomination, 
but the majority of them related to worldly affairs. One 
man wanted a prayer to obtain a situation j another for 
money to pay his rent ; a lady living in Albany wished to 
remove to a prettier city ; a man in Ohio desired a favor- 
able decision in a lawsuit pending in the Supreme Court 
of that State. Each one of these prayers was limited to 
five minutes. One was rattled off quickly after the other ; 
and it not unfrequently happened that a handful of these 
letters were read aloud, and then one or more of those 
present prayed for the writers. 

Can it be pleasing to God that a man who has confessed 
to the priest a sin which he has committed, should be 
ordered, by way of penance, to say thirty or forty times 
the Lord's Prayer or the Ave Maria ? Does not such a 



PRAYER. 3I9 

task, which is equally degrading for intellect and mind,, 
prostitute the dignity and blissfulness of prayer ? 

Such aberration of mind, such abuse of prayer, must be 
deeply regretted by every well-thinking man,— all the 
more as it must lead to the undermining of the high dig- 
nity and blissfulness of prayer. 

And is there a man, however honorable and good he 
may be, however faithfully he may fulfill his duty, whose 
faith does not require strengthening from time to time? 
There is no better and no more effective method of doing 
this than the resort to prayer and the cheerful looking up 
to God. An old poet, Tscherning, says : 
"Strike! strike at heaven's door: 
With words of strong faith come, 
God's helping hand implore ; 

And soon, from heaven's dome, 
His blessings down will pour 
On hand, on heart and home. 

" If God your hand but guide, 

His blessings still will stay ; 
But if he turn aside, 

Work deftly as you may, 
Your labor and your pride 

Will pass in shame away." 

And this poet is right : everything depends upon God's 
blessing. 

Truly, many families where coldness, strife and con- 
tention rule, would be better off if they lifted their heart 
to God. Prayer makes us gentle and unites us. In many 
families peace does not reign • husbands and wives make 
each other's lives unbearable, and set a bad example to 
the children. If these people, instead of giving way to 
their selfishness and seeking the mote in their brother's 



320 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

eye, but not the beam in their own, would turn to God 
in prayer, peace would be restored. Prayer is followed 
by unspeakable blessings. O ye poor ones, who look 
down scornfully upon those who pray and look up to 
their Creator, how many infinite blessings and inner joys 
you lose ! 

Common prayer in church by the assembled commu- 
nity, the so-called service of God, has also an elevating, 
beneficial and ennobling effect. I say the " so-called " 
service of God, because the name is a wrong one ; for 
when we pray to God we do not render him a service, 
but ourselves. Who has not experienced the sublime 
sentiment which is aroused by public worship ? Pecant, 
in his work on this subject, writes: "In such moments 
it seems as if the veil which hides the spiritual world were 
torn away. All cares and selfish endeavors are silenced ; 
the sanctity of our destination is revealed to our spirit ; 
the great religious ideas which we would try in vain to 
present to ourselves in solitude, appear as if surrounded 
by a new and unexpected glory ; the deepest chords of 
our hearts are touched; we see clearly before us the 
highest purpose of our existence ; the human idea, pene- 
trated by the infinite, attracts us and acts most powerfully 
on our innermost feelings." 

Another author, J. C. Scholz, writes: "One great 
idea lives in us all, — the feeling of human frailty and the 
feeling of an equal, eternal hope. Impure desires, which 
turn into annoying cares, are toned down ; the soul rises 
on the wings of devotion to eternal love, which is all- 
preserving. The community is at prayer. Everybody 
recovers himself, takes new confidence, power and cour- 
age. However simple may be the music of , the holy 



PRAYER. 32I 



song, it is not the harmony of the music which comforts 
us, but the harmony of hearts and thoughts and hopes. 
And, wrjiat man has read outside in the kingdom of nature, 
or what he has experienced in the struggle of life; what 
he may have won or lost, here alone he recognizes the 
value of his life and of his character. Here he fructifies 
the little seed which he has found, or which he has sown 
within him. 

: 'The common worship of God is a means of promot- 
ing brotherly love, and of furthering noble resolutions. 

" If we look at the life of the world, we find that sel- 
fishness is the mainspring of its feverish activity. The 
language of the heart is of no effect ; love is conquered 
by malice; gain and enjoyment are the watchwords of 
the day; the best man is seldom the most respected ; he 
stands alone. In the desire of every one to prevail over 
others, the gain of one becomes the loss of another. And, 
■ as worldly successes run in an opposite direction, mutual 
feelings are developed in the same way, and they become 
bitter, hateful and inimical. Material interests unite 
men in enterprises, and cause different countries and na- 
tions to approach each other. This is cheering, and, in 
a certain measure, causes the success of intelligence and 
labor. But the union of these interests is by no means 

the union of mankind. This requires something more 

namely, the religion of love. What we think and do, 
actuated by this sentiment, does good to all and harm to 
none. Social life divides men ; and this life, with all its 
circumstances considered in the light of love and union, 
reconciles them to each other. If cares and labor, sick- 
ness and pain, make you feel that you are a creature of 
earth, and perhaps worse than the brute or the senseless 



322 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

plant, then step forward and feel yourself a citizen of a 
higher order of things. If the world rejects you, come 
and see your relationship; know yourself as a member of 
that great family of God which prays to him as our Heav- 
enly Father. ' ' 

Dr. Stern says a few words about the observation of the 
Sabbath which we cannot omit here: "The last day of 
the week, not the first one, should be devoted to rest ; 
but we should not enjoy it until we have deserved it by 
our labor. The Sabbath-day does not command us to 
rest that we may interrupt our labor, but it grants it 
because we have finished our work; it does not demand 
rest as a duty, but gives it to us as a gift; it does not forbid 
labor because it is unholy and degrading, but it asks us to 
enjoy the fruit which we have earned. The Sabbath-day 
does not teach us to flee from labor in order to eiijoy rest, 
but it teaches us to work so that we may deserve it, and to 
enjoy it in a proper way, so that it may strengthen us for 
fresh activity. The Sabbath does not command that rest 
which consists only of a cessation from work, but that 
rest which prompts us to higher spiritual activity; not 
that rest which makes us deny the duty of work, but that 
rest which awakens in us the duty of self-elevation. 

"We cannot deny that the proper observation of the 
Sabbath does not consist in idleness which avoids the ap- 
pearance of work, in order not to violate the duty of 
repose, and that it does not consist in the unceasing desire 
to exchange work for pleasure, which would impede our 
desire for self-elevation ; but that the enjoyment of true 
and worthy pleasures cannot be a desecration of the Sab- 
bath ; and that joy, if it does not proceed from base sen- 
suality, is an elevation of the human mind over the pressing 



PRAYER. 323 

necessities of human life, and, therefore, a worthy obser- 
vation of the Sabbath-day. We will observe the Sabbath, 
not as a burden which religion has forced upon us, but as 
a gift which she has granted to us ; not as a deliverance 
from physical labor, but a deliverance from mental activ- 
ity ; not as a day of rest and indolence, but as a day of 
rest and improvement." 

How many good and honorable people keep away now- 
adays from the churches ! For him who knows the high 
value of common worship and common prayer, this is a 
most deplorable circumstance. But what is the cause of 
it ? Those false doctrines of Christian priests which, in- 
stead of teaching us what Jesus preached— love to God 
and to our fellow-creatures, which should be the constant 
and only text to their sermons— demand a blind belief 
in that which men have taught about Jesus; the blind 
belief in dogmas which are opposed to the eternal and un- 
changeable laws of nature,— dogmas which belong to a 
dark period, which are contradictory to reason, and which 
must be repulsive to every thinking and truly religious 
man. 

Let us hope that the time will soon come when the 
churches will preach true religion, instead of incompre- 
hensible and uncomprehended dogmas ; and when man- 
kind, now divided by different creeds, will be united in 
the worship of one Supreme Being and in love to their fel- 
low-creatures. That will be the true religion and the trut 
worship of God. 



Belief and Science. 



Mur h has been said and written about the conflict be- 
tween belief and science, and the incompatibility of these 
two factors of civilized life ; but they do not stand in 
opposition to each other, nor are they irreconcilable 
Only the false belief, the belief in the supernatural and 
unnatural, is held in contempt by science. And, on the 
other hand, only false science rejects everything which 
it cannot conceive or understand. With its defective 
human senses, in its purely materialistic views, it despises 
all that is super-sensible ; consequently the belief in one 
Supreme Being. 

It is foolish to consider true science as the enemy of 
belief, — not only foolish, but very culpable ; for we owe 
much to both science and religion. Whilst religion — not 
dogmatic faith, but the belief in one Supreme Being, 
which is in harmony with reason — gives warmth to our 
heart, and leads us to recognize our duty toward our fel- 
low-men, science gives us and nourishes in us knowledge 
and experience, and enables us to fulfill our duty toward 
our fellow- creatures, to be useful to all mankind, and to 
promote our own happiness. Astronomy and natural 
science teach us to recognize the sublime, the real revela- 
tion of God. Anatomy teaches us the marvelous construc- 
tion of our body, and its kindred sciences enable us to 
help our brethren in sickness. Chemistry, physical and 
mechanical sciences, assist us to ameliorate and bear the 
hardships and sufferings of life, or to acquire those worldly 
goods which make life comfortable. 

(324) 






BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 



3?5 



Science is no enemy of religion; but the Christian 
Church, which pretends to be the representative and sup- 
porter of religion, is opposed to science. Science is 
adverse only to that which is contradictory to reason ; it 
objects to the belief in miracles — to everything that is not 
in harmony with the eternal laws of nature. 

The life of man has a double purpose — an ideal and a 
real. The ideal directs us, in the contemplation of the 
Supreme Being, to care for our moral improvement. The 
real points to outer and earthly relations ; and it is in this 
endeavor that science teaches us to use our powers, and 
to procure for ourselves enjoyment. 

It cannot be denied that, among those who cultivate 
natural science, we find many an atheist. On the other 
hand, we find among the heroes of this noble science many 
a man of genuinely religious mind. As regards the first- 
named, the atheists, it is not the fault of science that they 
have lost their belief in God, but it is the human weakness 
of vanity. Such men, who have discovered and estab- 
lished some scientific facts and rendered important ser- 
vices, forget that their abilities do not come from them- 
selves, but are the gift of a higher Being. They are led 
into the error that they know everything, that they have 
fathomed every depth — an error which is all the more in- 
comprehensible, as every generation, every decennium, 
brings new discoveries and inventions, brilliant victories 
of science, which have never been thought of before. 

We need not refute the imputation of a majority of 
Christian priests, that natural science leads to atheism. 
On the contrary, an exhaustive study of the world and the 
entire life of nature is better qualified than anything else 
to establish and confirm in us the belief in a Supreme 



326 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Being and a Supreme Reason, and to lead us out of a state 
of blind belief in established authorities to an independent 
and earnest conviction of our own. Men like Copernicus, 
Kepler, Galileo, Linnaeus, Newton, the brothers Herschel, 
Bessel, Arago, Agassiz, Liebig, Faraday, and others, have 
given proof of this. 

The study and the influence of natural science gain 
ground every year. It is not an enemy of religion, but is 
a determined opponent of all theological speculations and 
stories of miracles. Science is gradually making an end 
of this; and theology, which calls itself falsely a science, 
will soon take its place with astrology, magic and alchemy. * 

Ecclesiastical persecution of science is very old. It 
dates from the earliest centuries. The Church pretended 
to be the judge of everything relating to science and 
knowledge, and never hesitated to call upon the worldly 
powers to carry out its dictates. It became the stumbling- 
block in the way of progress, and retarded the develop- 
ment of Europe for centuries. 

When Copernicus had written his great work, "De 
Revolutionibus Orbium Ccelestium," in which he proved 
that the sun was the centre of our system, the priests were 
such decided enemies of all innovations, that, through 
fear of excommunication, he kept his manuscript twelve 
years before he decided to publish it. 

When Galileo decided in favor of the Copernican 
system, he was pressed so hard by the Church that he 
humiliated himself by a degrading abjuration of what he 
had declared as true. The Church maintained that what 

* Theology is no science; for it is occupied only with the ideal, 
whilst science deals only with the real. Science is the province 
of knowledge; theology that of belief. 



BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 327 

he had written was contrary to the word of God, and his 
"Dialogues" were publicly burnt in Rome. Seven 
cardinals signed the sentence of the Inquisition, and Luther 
also joined in the condemnation of Galileo's doctrines. 
These doctrines have long been accepted, and Galileo's 
name is honored as one of the highest in science. 

When Buffon had published his history of the animal 
kingdom, the Theological Faculty of Paris informed him 
that several of his theories and principles were opposed to 
the spirit of the Church, and therefore condemnable. 
Buffon was compelled to declare that it was not his inten- 
tion to contradict the Bible, and that he was ready to 
recall everything he had written that was opposed to the 
law of Moses. 

In the beginning, Newton's principle of gravitation 
met with many opponents. He was accused of skepticism ; 
and the priests maintained that the Old Testament con- 
tained a complete system of natural science. 

In all times the priesthood has presumed to dictate to 
science what it should do, and what it should not do; 
what it should teach and not teach. It has always pro- 
tested against the views and discoveries of the enlightened 
men of science. Their labors were always considered as twin 
brothers of the devil. .Geographical, astronomical, and 
geological discoveries, wherever in conflict with the 
Church, have always been rejected and discredited. 

When the learned Bishop Virgil, in the eighth century, 
declared himself in favor of the belief in the existence of 
the Antipodes, Pope Zacharias, who was indignant at such 
a doctrine, gave orders to his envoy to expel the bishop 
from the priesthood, and to drive him from the altar of 
his church. 



328 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The Franciscan monk Roger Bacon was an astronomer, 
and made many scientific discoveries. He was the 
inventor of the magnifying glass. He also exposed the 
immorality of the priests. He was violently persecuted. 
He was accused of having sold himself to the devil, of 
having entered into a compact with him ; and his inven- 
tions were declared to be the work of hellish magic. 
Pope Nicholas III. prohibited him from teaching ; and, 
after much tribulation and sorrow, he was placed in 
prison, in which he spent ten years, until the end of his 
life was approaching. On his deathbed he said, in a 
sorrowful tone : "I regret not that I have suffered so 
much in the interest of science. The ignorance of those 
with whom I had to deal prevented me from doing 
more." 

The foundation of the Royal Society of England met 
with difficulties, because it was believed that scientific 
discoveries would be injurious to the Christian faith. 
The microscope and telescope were called atheistic dis- 
coveries. 

Doctor Jenner's discovery of the benefits of vaccination 
was declared from the pulpits to be a devilish one, a 
tempting of Providence, and a detestable crime. 

Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood was for 
many years scornfully rejected. 

Franklin's invention of the lightning-rod was considered 
sacrilege, and a crime against the will of God. 

When Thomas Gray tried to prove the feasibility of 
working railroads, the Edinburgh Review declared chat 
a strait -jacket would be best for him. And even Humphry 
Davy laughed at the idea that London could be lighted 
with gas. 



BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 3 2 9 

Even our own days furnish many instances of intolerance 
and opposition to progress on the part of many church- 
people, who consider every conquest of science as an 
attack upon faith. Those men who first thought of con- 
necting the Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean were asked if 
they were not afraid of the vengeance of heaven in attempt- 
ing to improve what the Creator, in his power and wisdom, 
had made as it was. Not many years have passed since the 
sacrament was refused to those who reaped their harvest by 
means of machinery; and there are to this day people who 
refuse to insure their lives because they consider it a want 
of confidence in Divine Providence. 

The priesthood takes its arguments from the Bible— a 
work which is not based upon abstract knowledge, but 
upon faith" in authorities, and which, therefore, is not ac- 
cessible to reason. Science does not believe : it knows, 
by study, that everything is based upon an infinitely wise 
plan; that creation has been developed, and is being 
developed, after unchangeable, established laws in unin- 
terrupted sequence. 

Huxley says, in one of his works: " Whilst the doctrines 
of heathenism, of Osiris and Zeus, have long been con- 
sidered as fables, and whilst everybody would be ridiculed 
who would try to revive them, there are countless people 
who still believe in the phantasmagories of the old, un- 
civilized nations of Palestine, and which are related in 
the Bible by unknown and uncultivated writers. People 
who think themselves civilized consider these fables as 
facts, and as a standard by which to measure the correct- 
ness of scientific inquiry. The old .Hebrew, half barba- 
rous idea of creation lies, in this nineteenth century, like 
a nightmare on the threshold of science. Who can count 



330 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

the men whose lives, from the time of Galileo until this 
day, have been embittered, whose good names have been 
tarnished by the blind zeal of the Bible-worshipers, on 
account of their earnest inquiry after truth? Who can 
count the number of weak men whose sense of truth has 
been destroyed by their endeavors to declare the impossible 
possible ; whose life has been wasted in the attempt to put 
the fresh young wine of science into the old vessels of old 
Judaism, pushed on by the roaring of these same Bible- 
worshipers?" 

As proof that religion and science are not opposed to 
each other, but, on the contrary, agree with each other, 
the following sayirgs of the heroes of science may be 
quoted : 

Kepler says, in his work in which he deposited his 
immortal discoveries : " The wisdom of the Lord is as in- 
finite as his glory and power. Praise thy Creator, O my 
soul ! for all things are in him and by him. In him are 
contained all we know and all our vain knowledge. Praise, 
glory and honor be to him forever !" 

When Copernicus communicated a new and important 
discovery, somebody made an objection which deserved 
attention, and asked him : " What do you reply to this?" 
" Nothing," answered Copernicus ; "but God will give 
grace that a reply may be found." Afterward, Galileo 
discovered with the telescope that Copernicus was right. 

Newton writes, in his principal work: "The Lord of 
heaven rules all things, not as the soul of the world, but 
as the ruler of the universe ; for that reason we call him 
the only-ruling God." 

Faraday, the scientist, says, in a letter of the 6th of 
November, 1863: "I think that also in earthly things 



BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 331 

God's invisible being — namely, his eternal power and God- 
head — can be recognized in his works, in the creation of 
the world." 

The chemist Liebig thought he had discovered that a 
certain exhaustion of the soil was constantly taking place 
which was not supplied in the natural course of events, 
but which chemistry had found the means of remedying. 
Afterward he declared: " When I had submitted all my 
theories to a new trial, I discovered the cause of my error: 
I had sinned against the wisdom of the Almighty. I 
thought, in my blindness, that there was a link missing in 
that wonderful chain of laws which determines and main- 
tains the life on the surface of the earth forever, which I, 
miserable worm, fancied myself called upon to fill out. 
Good care was taken to supply it, and in such a miracu- 
lous manner that the bare possibility of such a law could 
not even be imagined by human reason." 

The botanist Linnaeus writes, in his " System of Na- 
ture:" "I have observed animals relying for existence 
upon the vegetable world; the plants rooted in the soil; 
the earth, carried by the universe, traveling by unchange- 
able laws around the sun, which gives life to everything 
upon it ; the sun at last turning on its own axis, with 
other solar systems, without limitation of space or num- 
ber, supported by that inconceivable First Cause, that 
Being of beings, the Cause of all effects, the Architect, 
Preserver and Ruler of the Universe. Who calls this 
Being Ruler of the World is not mistaken, for everything 
depends upon him ; who calls him Creator does not err, 
for everything has its origin in him; who calls him Provi- 
dence is right, for the world proceeds in its progress ac- 
cording to his counsel. He sees everything, hears every- 



332 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

thing, endows everything with life and soul. He is all in all. 
This Being, without whom nothing can exist, is eternal, 
immeasurable, not begotten nor created. In his sacred 
majesty he can be viewed by the spirit only. Carefully 
watching, I have seen this one infinite, all-knowing Being, 
and have been overwhelmed with astonishment. I have 
discovered traces of his steps in this created world, and 
in them, even in the smallest, which almost disappear 
before our senses, have discovered a fullness of power, 
wisdom and unfathomable perfection." 

The naturalist Agassiz, in his great work on fishes, 
concludes his chapter on classification with the following 
words: "Do we not find here the revelation of a spirit 
which is as powerful as it is fertile? — the action of an in- 
telligence which is as sublime as it is provident ? — the 
traces of an infinite and wise Godhead? — the tangible 
proof of the existence of one God, the Creator of all 
things, the Ruler of the world and the Giver of all 
good? That, at least, is what I read in the works of 
creation." 

Dr. Virchow, the celebrated medical scientist, delivered 
in 1879 a lecture on the subject, "Liberty and Science," 
and expressed himself as follows: "All attempts to 
change our problems into doctrines, and use our theories 
as a basis for a method of education, particularly the at- 
tempt to replace the dogmas of the Church by a religion 
based upon the doctrine of descent, — all these attempts, I 
say, must miscarry." 

Dr. A. Jacobi delivered a lecture on Virchow in 1881, 
in which he says : " Virchow further maintains that be- 
lief has nothing to do with scientific inquiry, and religious 
controversy should find no place in scientific works. 



BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 333 

More than thirty years ago Virchow wrote : * It is im- 
possible to judge belief on scientific principles, for belief 
and science have nothing in common. Not that one 
makes the other impossible, or the contrary ; but, as far 
as science exists, belief is impossible: belief can begin 
only where science ceases. It cannot be denied that, 
where the limits are kept, belief can actually have realistic 
objects. It is the task of science not to attack the object 
of faith, but merely to determine the limits which cannot 
be reached by knowledge, and to establish within them a 
uniform self-consciousness.' " 

Radenberg says, in the second volume of his "Isis: " 
" Faith and knowledge belong to each other. This does 
not mean that we should abandon faith and cultivate 
science only: both can be nurtured at the same time. 
Man need not be rude and uncultivated in order to be- 
lieve ; no more need he be an unbeliever to devote him- 
self to science. We can be believers, and yet disciples 
of science ; we can have at the same time belief for the 
higher, super-sensible life, knowledge for the lower, 
earthly existence." 

Perthy says, in his "Views:" "Natural science is 
perfectly right when it demands for its domain the unlim- 
ited acknowledgment of its established laws. But this 
domain is only a part of the world, and its truths are not 
the whole truth. In the kingdom of the spirit there exist 
other conditions, which are not subject to the mechanical 
laws of the nature of senses, though they are by no means 
without law. The two are probably combined in a higher, 
unknown unity." 

Darwin wrote to a student who had asked him for a 
solution of certain doubts which Darwin's doctrine had 



334 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

aroused in him : " Science and Christianity have nothing 
to do with each other, except, perhaps, that scientific in-- 
quiry makes us careful in accepting proofs. As for myself, 
I do not believe that a divine revelation has ever taken 
place. As regards belief in a future life, everybody must 
draw his conclusions from indefinite and contradictory 
possibilities." 

Following these expressions of opinion by scientific 
authorities referring to the relations between belief and 
science, we quote one coming from the opposite side — 
from a prominent member of the Christian Church, who, 
quite exceptionally, does not hold a position inimical to 
science. This distinguished member of the Church is no 
other than the present pope, Leo XIII. While Bishop of 
Perugia, he expressed himself on the relation of science to 
religion in a pastoral letter addressed to his diocese. 
Referring to the question whether the salvation of the soul 
should be the highest aim of man, he wrote: "But it 
should not be said that the Church is opposed to science, 
to the study of natural sciences, to inquiries into the powers 
of nature, to the use which can be made of them for man's 
purposes and the satisfaction of his wants. Can the Church 
desire anything more ardently than the glorification of 
God ? — the knowledge of the sublime Master which is 
revealed in his works? If the universe is the book on 
every page of which the name and the wisdom of the 
Creator can be read and recognized, how lovingly should 
he worship it who fully and entirely devotes himself to the 
study of this book of creation ! If two eyes suffice to 
recognize in the stars the glorification of the heavens ; if 
two ears suffice to understand how day after day repeats 
the praise of the Highest and announces the mysteries of 



BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 335 

his divine providence,— how much more deeply must he 
be convinced of the all-power and all-wisdom of the Deity, 
who with intelligent eyes looks up to the heavens and 
into the depths of the earth ! — who finds a proof in an 
atom, in a plant, in the smallest branch, that the Supreme 
Spirit 1 as determined everywhere measure and weight ! 
And you wish that the Church should, on principle, 
attack such studies, or should view with cold indifference 
inquiries which bear such precious fruit ! that it should 
obstinately insist upon keeping the book closed, so that 
nobody may read it ! " 

We have quoted above an expression of Darwin ; and 
this leads us to Darwinism, which has created an intense 
sensation in the field of natural science. And not without 
reason ; for Darwin has established a new theory of the 
creation of the animal world. The leading principle of 
this doctrine is, that all species of plants and animals are 
descended from a few primitive forms (vesicle), perhaps 
from one only, and that the following generations have 
been developed to more perfect forms. Darwin's mode 
of reasoning is as follows : First : Every generation differs 
from the preceding in trifling details, the cause of which 
may be recognized in differences in the conditions of 
origin and existence. Secondly: The tendency of 
inheritance exists not only in general, but in par- 
ticular marks. Thirdly: Individuals which are most 
favorably organized for the conditions of existence, will 
be more easily preserved than others with which they 
are struggling for existence. And if these favoring 
qualities are inherited by their posterity, these will 
be able more and more to outlive their less favored 
relatives. 



336 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

It has sometimes been asserted that Darwinism destroys 
the belief in one Supreme Being as the Creator of the 
world; but that is not the case. Above all, it must be 
kept in mind that Darwin's theory, however ingenious it 
may be, is not based upon established facts, but upon 
hypotheses ; for nobody has ever seen the springing into ex- 
istence of a man or an animal. No thoughtful man will take 
the biblical account of the Creation as an authentic state- 
ment ; and no more should we attach the importance of 
an accomplished fact to Darwin's theories. Goethe also 
rejected the biblical account of the Creation. In his 
dialogues with Eckermann (Vol. II.), he says: " Men 
came into existence hy the power of God, wherever the 
soil was favorable, probably first on high ground. It is 
perfectly reasonable to suppose that this happened ; but to 
meditate upon how it happened is an unprofitable business, 
which we may leave to those who like to trouble them- 
selves with unprofitable problems. ' ' 

The manner in which the world and its creatures have 
come into existence has nothing to do with our belief in 
God, or our moral conduct. That the world, with all that 
is within it, has been created, and stands before us in all 
its beauty and glory, is certain. Whoever sees that a thing 
cannot come into being without creative wisdom and 
power, whoever sees more than mere accident in the wise 
laws which regulate the world, must accept the idea of a 
creator ; and that is quite enough for us mortals. How it 
was created surpasses all human wisdom. 

A modern writer, Alois Goedel, expresses himself about 
the Darwinian theory as follows: "If I could only see 
anywhere in this world a heap of primeval soil, vesicle, 
worm or ape, my reason would sooner leave me than im- 



BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 337 

agine what the human spirit is, and how it could descend 
from that. But if I see everywhere in the world an infinite, 
eternal and perfectly free whole, I am convinced that 
primeval soil, vesicles, animal and human intelligence, 
signify only the wonderful, multifarious species of existence 
in which the whole universe is revealed to my limited 
consciousness as of divine origin." 

Darwin is no opponent of religion. On the contrary, 
he expresses himself distinctly in favor of creaton — creation, 
not coming into existence, and having existed from eternity. 
This supposes a something which must have existed before 
the world, and which has created the world. Only his 
followers pretend that he has omitted to draw the final 
conclusions of his theories, in order not to hurt the relig- 
ious sensitiveness of his countrymen; and that he has 
expressed himself so cautiously for that reason only. But, 
thereby, they not only injure Darwin, but also his system, 
which in no manner favors the materialistic principle; on 
the cqntrary, it lends fresh support to the foundation of 
the belief in one Creator. 

Darwin has found in the scientific world not only a 
number of adherents, but also many and weighty oppo- 
nents. The celebrated scientist Lucal, as President of the 
Anthropological Congress held in Frankfort in 1882, 
pronounced himself as directly opposed to the Darwinian 
theory. Professor Virchow declared his complete ac- 
cordance with Lucal, in the following words: " We con- 
fine ourselves to report, and to declare as truth, that which 
we can really prove. Let us remain in this narrow path; 
let us not be seduced by the siren songs of a poetical view 
of nature, even if it appears before us in the garb of 
philosophy. Let us continue to be empirics in the good 
22 



33$ THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

sense of the word. The greatest honor is due to the 
Anthropological Society, to which so many experienced 
searchers belong, not to be dazzled by Darwinism. I do 
not agree with Darwinism and its followers in those points 
in which they go beyond the limits of exact science and 
replace it by hypotheses. If they carried out their theories, 
they would be able to make pancakes without eggs or hens, 
produce bread without baking. Up to our day it has not 
yet been possible to produce out of inorganic matter even 
the smallest of living beings. There has never been a period 
in which the gravest problems have been treated in such a 
reckless and, I might say, foolish manner. Nobody has 
yet seen a man about entering into existence: he was 
already finished. The original man has yet to be found." 

When, at the Congress of German naturalists at Munich, 
it was proposed to introduce Darwin's theory of the descent 
of man into the public schools, Virchow opposed the 
motion with these words : ' ' Gentlemen, let us be temperate ; 
let us practice resignation, by considering even the most 
precious problems which we discuss as problems only. 
Let us repeat again and again, Do not take these problems 
for established facts. On the contrary, be prepared to be- 
lieve that they may be fallacious. For the present, we are 
only of opinion that it might be thus." 

Virchow also produced no small impression, when, on 
the same occasion, he replied to a Mr. von Tiegel that the 
old God was still living, and that the human soul could not 
be driven out of the world by levers and telescopes. It is 
easy to say that the original vesicle, from which all organic 
life is descended, consists of minute parts, which are 
called " plastidules ; " and these consist of carbonic 
matter, of hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen; and each is 



BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 339 

endowed with a distinct soul, the produce of which is the 
sum of the power of the chaotic atoms. As long as the 
qualities of these matters are not sufficiently determined 
that it can be conceived how a soul can be created out of 
their union, we cannot speak of it as a scientific truth, but 
only as a problem. The descent of man from the ape, or 
any other animal, is only a problem, as prehistoric dis- 
coveries have not produced a trace of the cranium of the 
prehistoric man. The intentional or unintentional con- 
fusion of problems with established truths brings danger 
to science, the dignity of which is imperiled, with that of 
the nation whose judgment is misled. 

At the annual meeting of the Victoria Institute in 
London, in June, 1883, the celebrated paleontologist, 
Prof. Barrande, declared that in none of his investigations 
had he found any one fossil species develop into another. 
In fact, it would seem that no scientific man had yet dis- 
covered a link between man and ape, between fish and 
frog, or between the vertebrate and invertebrate animals ; 
further, there was no evidence of any one species, fossil or 
other, losing its peculiar characteristics to acquire new 
ones belonging to other species; for instance, however 
similar the dog to the wolf, there was no connecting link ; 
and among extinct species the same was the case : there 
was no gradual passage from one to another. Moreover, 
the first animals that existed on the earth were by no 
means to be considered as inferior or degraded. And 
Prof. Huxley, in his sixth lecture on the origin of species, 
says, with reference to one of Darwin's hypotheses : ' ' You 
must understand that I mean that I accept it provision^ 
ally, in exactly the same way as I accept any other 
hypothesis. Men of science do not pledge themselves to 



340 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

creeds ; they are bound by articles of no sort. There is 
not a single belief that it is not a bounden duty with them 
to hold with a light hand, and to part with cheerfully the 
moment it is really proved to be contrary to any fact, 
great or small. And if, in course of time, I see good reasons 
for such a proceeding, I shall have no hesitation in coming 
before you and pointing out any change in my opinion, 
without finding the slightest occasion to blush for so 
doing." 

From several German universities opinions adverse to 
the Darwinian theory have been heard — from Giessen, 
by Professor Hofmann; from Greifswald, by Professor 
Zoeckler; from Marburg, by Professor Wigand. 

Nobody who is not altogether without knowledge, un- 
less he knowingly and intentionally ignores established 
facts, can have a moment's doubt about the innumerable, 
incalculable blessings which science has conferred upon 
mankind in all conditions of life. The fact alone that it 
is the enemy of ignorance, false belief and superstition, 
should secure it our highest esteem. It is the electric 
light which changes the darkness of night into broad day- 
light. But it is a great folly for science to attempt to rule 
over domains which do not belong to it, or to consider 
itself infallible, and demand that all its doctrines shall be 
received without question and as established dogmas. 
Experience, based upon facts, teaches us that many 
theories which science has proclaimed and established as 
correct, have been overthrown by later experiments and 
discoveries. Only ignorance and pride could induce us 
to think that we have exhausted science and reached in- 
fallibility. Science is constantly progressing and growing, 
so that what to-day is considered as absolutely certain, 



BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 341 

may be overcome to-morrow. Karl Vogt, an authority 
of the highest rank, says: "Science can never be 
exhausted." 

Whatever great results science has produced, it has still 
an immense field before it, and has to solve problems, 
many of which may never be solved. We know the law 
of gravitation, of the poles, and of their mutual relation 
of attraction and repulsion. We know the composition of 
light; we know its analysis by means of the spectrum; 
and we know a thousand other things which indefatigable 
inquiry has revealed in the field of natural science. But 
if we examine closely these scientific conquests, we find 
that they are only of external importance. Of the real 
life of nature, and the main conditions of all being and 
growing, we know nothing. We stand before a doubly- 
sealed book ; and only the connection between cause and 
effect enables us to acquire an opinion, which does not 
justify us in setting it up as an established truth. 

When science ventures upon the examination of bodies 
which possess life and soul, it comes to a standstill at 
once. Every student can observe in himself that science 
knows very little about the qualities and power of the 
human spirit — about the mutual relation between him and 
other living beings ; and he is daily astonished and con- 
fused by new phenomena and observations. Science, in 
this department, is able to judge only in a very limited 
way on mere possibilities. We can explain very little 
about the spiritual life and its physical causes. The prin- 
cipal organ of our spiritual life, the brain, with its activity, 
is, even in our days, a shrouded mystery. Those repre- 
sentatives of science who consider the human spirit merely 
as the expression of the activity of the brain, and deny 



342 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

everything which they cannot perceive with their bodily 
senses, and — with good reason — make war against Chris- 
tian orthodoxy, have their own dogmatism, like the 
Christian theologians; only, with this difference — that 
their orthodoxy is diametrically opposed to the Christian 
dogmas. Might truth not lie between them ? The brain 
may produce thought ; yet the thought is something very 
different from the bodily organ by which it is pro- 
duced. 

That a change of matter takes place ih the human body 
is an established fact; but physiology can tell very little 
about the process of this change, either in a healthy or a 
sick person. No more do we know how the vesicle of the 
brain produces thought, or the glands of the stomach 
produce gastric juice. 

Science has partly discovered the composite parts of the 
earth, and will undoubtedly make still further discoveries; 
but how it has come into existence will never become 
positively clear, for that is hidden in the mystery of 
eternity. 

We know that our muscles are set to work by our will, 
for we experience it every moment ; but how our will is 
capable of producing this effect has not been discovered. 
We know that the smallest seed produces the giant tree; 
but how it happens has never been discovered. 

Do we understand the whole of the life of plants? We 
can dissect them. We know that they consist of vessels, 
partitions and manifold organs, and that a circulation of 
sap or juice takes place. But why all this occurs in that 
particular manner; how stem, leaves, blossoms and fruit 
are produced ; how such colors, such forms, such qualities, 
are brought forth; and how just this peculiar, individual 



BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 343 

life is active within, — we are not able to explain. Who 
can explain satisfactorily its growth? Who has looked 
into the inner, secret working of that active life in the 
vegetable kingdom? Our eyes, even when artificially 
assisted, can do nothing more. They see that the seed 
grows and germinates; that the germ develops into the 
blade"; that the blade, by increase, builds up story upon 
story, and culminates in the ear; that the ear blossoms 
and is filled with grain. All this can be seen with the 
eye; but the how, the actual working life, the power which, 
producing and increasing with the matter, moves and 
works in the innermost part, has not been seen by the 
human eye, has not been discovered by the naturalist. 
We stand in astonishment upon the harvest-field. And 
how our admiration increases when we step out of the 
world of sheaves into that of shrubs, herbs, vines, fruits, 
flowers and trees, — if we stand meditating in the vegetable 
world and look upon all the children of nature ! 

Do we understand fully and without reserve any event 
which occurs in nature? We lift up a stone: we let it fall. 
Can we explain that? It is the law of gravitation, we are 
told. Very well; that is the name given, in this instance, 
to the cause. But is this designation, this name which 
we give to the process, an explanation? What is gravita- 
tion? Why does it exist? Can we explain it? No. We 
must accept it as an existing fact. It is there, and that 
must suffice. The magnet has the power of attracting 
iron. In what consists this power, and how is it produced? 
We do not know. We only judge, from its effect upon 
the iron, that it exists. Thus it is with other powers of 
nature. No created being enters into the sanctuary of 
nature. 



344 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

By chemistry, science is enabled to separate and combine 
the different elements of matter; but it cannot develop 
the elements into higher forms of life. 

It is often said that science teaches us to rule nature. 
That is untrue. Man can never rule nature ; but science 
teaches and enables man to make the powers of nature 
serviceable to him. 

But the representatives of science should not forget that 
all our knowledge is piecework, and that, as Hamlet says, 
" there are more things in heaven and earth than are 
dreamed of in our philosophy. ' ' Science should not be 
influenced by the Church, but should remember that there 
is a sphere which is beyond science and the knowledge of 
things which are perceptible to our senses, — a barrier which 
separates that which is natural and conceivable from that 
which is super-sensible, which cannot be determined by 
our senses. 

Among the representatives of science there are those 
who deny everything that they cannot perceive with their 
human senses, which they cannot fathom. The gift of 
second-sight, the clairvoyance of somnambulism, presenti- 
ments and prophetic dreams, the apprehension of some- 
thing unknown, spiritual effects at a distance, the knowl- 
edge of others' thoughts, and other phases of the soul, 
although they have been proved in a thousand instances, 
and have been experienced by reliable and trustworthy 
men, are considered by them as hallucination, fancy, 
deceit and fraud. Such men only acknowledge as really 
existing that which they can dissect with the scalpel or 
chemically analyze. To them the world is nothing but a 
mechanical structure, without spiritual life; and they 
forget that in the chain of the universal life there are still 



BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 345 

many missing links. This pharisaical skepticism, which 
denies everything without inquiry, is as dangerous as the 
blind credulity which accepts everything without question 
or reflection. The former, indeed, is only a kind of 
ignorance which assumes the mask of intellectual fullness. 
Beyond those things which can be weighed, measured, 
recognized and explained by human inquiry, there are 
other powers, which are inaccessible to science, the exist- 
ence of which can be proved only by observation with the 
spiritual eye, by a view into our own soul. These are 
neither unnatural nor supernatural phenomena. There is 
no room for such phenomena in the whole universe, where 
everything is natural. But there are super-sensible phe- 
nomena — that is to say, things which we cannot see by our 
earthly senses, and which we cannot understand through 
our earthly conceptions. To these belong those incidents 
in the life of our soul which we have mentioned above. 
Distinct and well-proven indications about such phenom- 
ena have been made by men like Ennemoser and other 
contemporaries of Koerner. They should not be placed by 
the side of the twaddle of ignorant old women. Even 
when Kant speaks of things belonging to the domain of 
presentiment ; and when Lessing, speaking of a ghost 
story which caused a great sensation in his day, said, 
" Here we are at the end of our tether," it is easy enough 
to laugh ; but it is impossible for unprejudiced and thought- 
ful people to reject the thought that we are standing on 
the borders of a sphere which exists, all the same, although 
we cannot discover it with our present knowledge of 
nature. Even Schopenhauer has recognized the exist- 
ence of these spheres ; and the attacks which have been 
made upon the great philosopher cannot detract from the 



346 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

weight of his opinion : " To deny the existence of these 
things is not absence of prejudice, it is ignorance." In 
the wide circle of popular life lives a conviction that there 
is an inexplicable relation between man and a surround- 
ing, super-sensible world. It has been recognized by- 
representatives of science, by Zechner and the younger 
Fichte, that a bridge is to be spanned between our 
knowledge of nature and something which lies be- 
yond it. 

Science must divest itself of its skeptical pride, and not 
reject everything as a fable which it cannot understand 
and explain by intellectual research. It must take account 
of those facts to which numerous instances and all ages 
have borne witness — that there is a spiritual life of man, 
the higher destiny of which by its freedom and splendor 
transcends material limits; and, notwithstanding the 
doubts and darkness of the senses, it remains, it endures, 
and, by thousandfold-repeated revelations, makes itself 
felt in the human heart. 

Representatives of science who consider themselves in- 
fallible, who reject everything as fraud and deception that 
surpasses their senses, are like those Roman priests who, 
two and a half centuries ago, persecuted Galileo on ac- 
count of his assertion that the earth revolved around the 
sun, because they did not understand what was clear to 
his mind. The same will happen to those shortsighted 
people who, in their self-conceit, reject everything which 
they do not understand ; and the words of Galileo, " And 
yet she moves," will be applied to them. If these people 
had not only studied the body of man and its functions, 
and the outer world, but also inquired seriously and ex- 
haustively into the life of man's soul, they would not pass 



BELIEF AND SCIENCE. 347 

judgment so recklessly and insultingly upon the phases of 
soul-life. 

It has sometimes been supposed that science, particu- 
larly natural science, could and would supplant religion. 
That is a great error, and would prove to be a great mis- 
fortune for mankind. 

Science proceeds from intellect, religion from reason 
and the soul. Every one of these functions of human life 
has its rights, which must not be obliterated or impaired, 
lest the whole human race perish. Science, which deals 
with purely material, chemical and physical necessities, 
cannot supply man with that which heart and reason 
demand, and what he seeks in religion — namely, love, 
confidence, comfort, reconciliation and liberty. Can 
geology teach him to do right, or anthropology to love his 
neighbor? Can chemistry and physical science induce 
him to conquer selfishness? Can biology inspire him with 
the sense of friendship ? Science, alone, leaves the heart 
barren, and leads to an all-destroying selfishness, to com- 
plete heartlessness, if not to hatred of all mankind. 

Every thinker must admit that all recent conquests of 
science, all results of inquiry, are not able to shake the 
belief in one Supreme Being. On the contrary, they have 
served the majority of mankind to enlarge this idea, to 
perfect and purify it, and to change belief into conviction. 
With a few scientific phrases, it is easy to lead an unedu- 
cated or half-educated man searching for enlightenment 
to the belief that there is no God, because the idea of 
God has been darkened in him by his faith in the Church. 
But the more his knowledge is enlarged, the more he is 
enabled to rectify his ideas about a Supreme Being and 
clear them of all human encumbrance, the more difficult 



348 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

it will be to convert him to atheism. In a people, the 
annihilation of belief in God would be the same as the 
extermination of all higher emotions and views, of all 
feeling of justice and morality ; for in the idea of one 
God is united all that distinguishes man from the beast — 
namely, law, order, truthfulness, justice, kindness and 
love. 

Religion and science are not opposed to each other. They 
are the founders of the welfare of mankind, and fellow- 
workers. Both pursue the same task — to enlighten men, to 
make them better and happier. 



The Opponents of Religion. 



The indifference to religion which prevails at present, 
among the most educated as well as among the most unedu- 
cated classes, has its cause partly in the Christian dogmas, 
which by their irrationality repulse men, partly in the 
erroneous doctrines of materialism and similar teachings, 
the promoters of which are continually striving to gain 
acknowledgment and propagation of their philosophy. 
This is the consequence of the old ecclesiastical doctrine : 
Thou shalt not think, but believe. And this new doctrine 
is accepted, as was formerly the blind belief of the 
Church. 

Let us first turn to materialism. 

Materialism is that doctrine according to which matter 
and all that is of bodily substance, all existence that can 
be perceived by the outward sense, is considered as the 
base of all life, from which also all spiritual phenomena 
are derived. 

Spiritual life is considered entirely as a chain of func- 
tions and activities of the organic body. Irrespective of 
those uneducated and half-educated people who welcome 
materialism as the opponent of religion, the new doctrine 
has also found many followers among the educated, par- 
ticularly among physiologists and physicians, who think 
that they have found in it the clue to physiological phe- 
nomena and spiritual life, which they now think they can 
explain according to purely scientific doctrines. But the 
more experiments have been made to subject the life of 

(349) 



35© THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

the soul — that is to say, feeling and thought — to the laws 
of physical science, the more decidedly it has been proved 
that physical science is not, in this respect, sufficient to 
establish satisfactory results. Certain actions of the soul 
take place which can be as clearly perceived as a physical 
act, but cannot be subjected to material laws, being de- 
pendent upon physical experience. 

This kind of materialism, which is not improperly called 
Scientific Materialism, because it is occupied with the ex- 
periment of human nature, is opposed by ordinary materi- 
alism, which is mc rely the slave of sensualism. This 
materialism denies God, and the spiritual life of man as 
an independent intellectual power. It maintains that the 
universe has come into existence by itself, and is con- 
stantly undergoing changes by a constant inward power. 
In its eyes the whole universe is a great machine which 
blindly and purposelessly moves according to an outward 
necessity. It considers the human mind as the product 
of organic matter, and maintains that thought, sentiment 
and will-power are produced by the same matter, without 
man being able to perform any independent action. He 
who is good, kind, sensible and righteous, is so only 
because the constitution of his body compels him to be 
so. It is no merit of his own. And he who harbors evil 
thoughts, leads an ungodly life, lies, steals and murders, 
is not responsible for his actions, because the organization 
of his body is the cause of them. 

The brain is that part of the human body which, accord- 
ing to the doctrines of materialism, is the seat of thought, 
sentiment and will-power. This organ may be destroyed 
or dissolved without the spirit which used it as a tool 
sharing its fate. 






THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 351 

The assertion of materialism that the human spirit is 
nothing but the result of the activity of the brain, is con- 
tradicted by those cases, of not uncommon occurrence, 
where men for years have carried balls in their brain, or 
been injured in some other way in a portion of it, without 
losing the active functions of their mind, The annals of 
medicine relate manv instances (also Schubert, in his 
" History of the Soul") where men were ill for many 
years, and, at an examination of their bodies after their 
death, it was found that their brain had shrunk down to a 
minimum, perhaps to one-third of its original substance, 
or had been changed into a dry, sinewy mass, whilst their 
mental activity had been a normal one until the hour of 
their death. Hufeland, in his Journal of Practical 
Medicine, of October, 1823, gives an account of the 
following striking instance: "The sister of a man who 
was lying on his sick-bed went, the day before his death, 
to church, and told him that she was going to Mass. This 
was Good Friday. ' You mean to Communion, ' he replied, 
'for there is no Mass to day.' " In order to distinguish 
and speak so decidedly, the man must have had conscious- 
ness and memory. At the medical examination which 
took place after his death, not a trace of brain could 
be found. The shell was perfectly hollow, like a 
box, and only a small quantity of fluid was found at the 
bottom. 

Darwin and others relate instances of injuries to the 
brain, where men for many months have existed in a per- 
fectly unconscious state, and have recovered with fresh 
intellectual powers. Such cases would be impossible, if 
mental activity depended upon physical circumstances, or 
upon certain parts of the human body»- 



352 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Physiologists have not agreed on the question : Which 
part of the human body is the dwelling-place of the soul? 

Descartes has placed the abode of the soul in a certain 
gland of the brain ; since then, other portions of the brain, 
and, finally, the water, or rather ether (Hagen), of the 
cavity of the brain have been considered to contain the 
soul. 

Cases where people with injured, diminished, or com- 
pletely vanished brains have lived until their death in the 
full possession of their mental powers, furnish a proof 
that the idea that the human spirit is dependent upon the 
activity of the brain is an erroneous one. The assertion 
that men with a smaller substance of brain are possessed 
of less mental power than those of a larger brain, has 
been proved to be erroneous. Professor Bruehl, of 
Vienna, in his work on the brain of vertebrates, in which 
he also treats on the subject of women's brains, and the 
erroneous assumption that their brain is lighter than that 
of men, proves, by careful experiment and the anatomy 
of the brain, that the brain of many a celebrated scientist 
had a smaller surface and weighed less than that of some 
obscure woman; that, indeed, all estimates of weight and 
surface which had hitherto been published were false; 
and that if they were correct, the power of the human 
mind could in no way be determined on this basis; and 
that in this respect science stood before an unsolved 
problem. 

Frederick Muench says : " The self-conscious and think- 
ing power of man is the spiritual force. The organization 
of the body which consists of matter that can be conceived 
by the senses — namely, the brain, which consists of 
albumen, fat, phosphorus and water, and is continually 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 353 

fed by the circulation of the blood — cannot by itself pro- 
duce mental activity. It is at most only its tool and out- 
ward shell. Mental power seems to be connected with 
something superior, which does not belong to earth, but 
to the universe — some spiritual formation within a bodily 
shell. In this matter effects become possible which can- 
not be explained by the union of albumen, fat, phos- 
phorus and water." 

The organization of the most superior animals is very 
little different from that of the human body as regards the 
quality of flesh, blood and general structure. The 
ape approaches nearest in form to man; and, also, the 
physical qualities are almost the same — intelligence, cun- 
ning, reflection, love, hatred, revenge, wrath, attachment, 
faithfulness, malice, shrewdness, fear, anxiety, rage and 
courage. The functions of the animal body are very 
much the same as those of man — waking and sleeping, 
eating and drinking, evacuation and copulation. But it 
is not the body which constitutes the man, but the spirit 
which inhabits it# A higher power than that of the soul, 
the spirit, makes man a superior being and elevates him 
above the world of animals. And it is this spirit, which 
does not depend upon the body nor perish with it, that 
places man above the animal, which follows only natural 
instincts and has no mental faculties. 

Oersted, in his work, "The Spirit of Nature," says: 
"The spiritual power is the creative power; the body 
would cease to exist if the creative activity of the spirit 
could ever cease. The basis of existence is not to be 
sought in bodily matter. Matter has no existence by 
itself, but is dead. Nature is not of bodily quality alone, 
but is penetrated by the spirit," 
23 



354 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The naturalist Schleiden, in his work, " Plants and 
Their Life," says: "In the very depths of his mind, 
man feels that he does not belong to this world of bodies 
which surround him, but that his home is a world of in- 
dependent, living spirits." In another place he says: 
"The aim of natural science should be to place the spirit 
in its proper place, independent of nature, and to elevate 
it to a religious presentiment of the existence of a Supreme 
Being." 

N. Hartmann, in his work on materialism, says : "In 
a world where intellectual and moral power does not rule 
supreme, but unconscious powers of nature reign, the 
affairs of life cannot come into existence by means of law- 
less materialism and physical forces, but only by accident- 
al coincidences of favorable circumstances. In such a 
world there can be no idea of the nobler motives of 
human thought and activity, of religion, virtue and 
morality ; they may, at the best, be considered as harm- 
less, insignificant enthusiasm. And the secretions of the 
brain, from which, according to the doctrines of material- 
ism, thought proceeds, can be of value only as far as they 
produce cleverness, cunning and shrewdness. ' ' 

Materialism is the most decided and direct opponent of 
idealism, which beautifies life in all its effects. Idealism 
seeks to elevate and improve public and private life; 
materialism works in the opposite direction, as it subjects 
the spiritual life to the physical, and teaches that, with 
the death of the body, the human spirit will cease to exist. 

Materialism considers only the surface of things; it 
closes its eyes to the functions of the all-ruling spirit ; yet 
it believes that its views are the only infallible ones. The 
materialists do not care for the future; they say: "All 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 355 

your talk of moral destiny, of responsibility and freedom 
of will, is an idle, continual self-deception. Enjoy your 
brief life as best you can, and then return into nothing, 
without leaving a trace, like the other animals which have 
not the advantage of spirit." 

These materialistic views are so cold, so unprofitable, 
so depressing, so injurious to the heart and mind in their 
consequences, that they cannot bear the criticism of sound 
reason. 

No doubt there are materialists who in practical life 
preserve warmth of sentiment and love for the good. 
But these are exceptions; and, as a rule, they carry their 
cold, calculating reasoning into practice. Every view of 
life is the result of habit and education. If you wish to 
educate a young man to the doctrine of materialism, you 
should be consistent, and banish from his education every- 
thing of a religious or ideal nature. The heart certainly 
would perish ; the source of all that is beautiful and great 
in the human breast would dry up, and the intellect would 
come to the conviction that there is nothing in this world 
but power and matter. By this system we should educate a 
theoretical materialist ; and it would be a miracle if such a 
man carried into practical life what we call heart and soul. 

Materialism is absolutely sterile. It has made a great 
noise, but has gained no result, simply because it is want- 
ing in the ideal. It has produced no great idea, no great 
action. It has produced nothing of consequence. Ma- 
terialism smothers all nobler feelings in the heart of men, 
and prevents all rising to a superior state. But wherever 
we look into nature, we see that everything that is great 
and sublime has not been originated by materialism, but 
by ideal enthusiasm. It is not narrow reason which pro- 



356 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

duces that which endures, but it is genius, the ideal, 
divine spark in the human soul. 

Oettingen says, in his " Statistics of Morals," " A natu- 
ral consequence of the philosophy of materialism is the 
inordinate desire for enjoyment. Hundreds of thousands 
wish to enjoy, and thousands of others speculate upon this 
desire for enjoyment. The thirst for desire becomes more 
violent as it is satisfied. Luxury and dissipation have led 
criminals of the most different kinds into prison. Mate- 
rialism has destroyed in them every belief in something 
superior ; it has taken away from them the power of resig- 
nation, and has made the step toward crime easier to them 
than the return to the right path." 

Frederick Muench says : e ' The steadily increasing desire 
for enjoyment, which, by the side of the effrontery of 
vice and inward depravity, hides itself under the cloak of 
hypocrisy; the neglect of the most sacred duties in 
domestic and public life ; the insatiable greed for money, 
which shrinks from no means of obtaining it ; private and 
public frauds; deeds of the most brutal violence, and, 
finally, the end of a degraded life by a ball from a pistol, 
— all these are the natural consequences of a doctrine 
which drags man down to the level of a brute beast." 

In every phase of life we see the fruits of this false phi- 
losophy — as, for instance, in the degradation of public 
opinion, in political, social, commercial, and all other 
circumstances. The most miserable egotism and shame- 
less curining walk hand in hand to gather their prey; 
always ready to treat the law with contempt, because the 
inner, moral laws cause no scruple within them : they 
have been obliterated by the false doctrines of material- 
ism. Mere instinct teaches them to care for themselves 






THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 357 

only as far as possible until their despicable life has come 
to an end. What a blasphemy against God and man are 
such a life, such a system, and such an end ! 

But the progress and happiness of mankind consist, not 
in brutal realism arid desire of enjoyment, but in the ideal 
striving after the good. And this ideal desire persists to 
this day in by far the larger majority of mankind. It is 
sometimes suppressed in the turmoil of everyday life ; but 
it always comes to life again, and a beautiful, rich har- 
mony is the result. In resignation of all selfishness, and 
in love, we find the redemption of mankind from triviality, 
baseness, and the stupefying effects of materialism. 

That our century is called the century of enlightenment 
must fill every thinking man with joy. But, unfortunately, 
this enlightenment is not always true and genuine ; and it is 
certain that the idea of enlightenment is not clearly com- 
prehended by a great number of people, and is looked for 
in circumstances and doctrines which do not serve to en- 
lighten, but which only replace a new authority in place 
of the rejected authority of the Church. It is only the 
uneducated and the half-educated who blindly accept the 
doctrines of materialism, and boast of this fact to be con- 
sidered as liberal-minded men. The desire for enlighten- 
ment which characterizes our century is frequently in- 
clined to throw away every belief, even the most natural, 
and to deny everything which does not fit into the system 
which has been established by the representatives of 
materialism. In some instances, so-called enlightenment 
assumes a mask as false as that which Christianity puts on 
when it desires to represent itself as the benefactor of 
mankind. Thus the world groans between the tyranny of 
the priesthood and a false enlightenment which has for an 



358 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

aim only the culture of the intellect, and neglects to care 
for the life of the spirit ; and which, on account of per- 
fectly justified aversion to Christianity, also rejects the 
religious aspirations of mankind. Many a one, from 
hatred of ecclesiasticism, has fallen a victim to the brutal 
force of material enjoyment ; others again, from fear of 
this materialism, which denies every moral law, have taken 
shelter in the arms of the Church and under the authority 
of the priesthood, who, instead of educating men for this 
life, prepare them for the future life, which is to be in 
11 heaven." 

When the Church dogmas declare this life to be a vale 
of tears, the abode of care and sorrow, for which men 
will be rewarded in " heaven," they are as false, and 
cause as much mischief as materialism, which declares the 
enjoyments of this life to be the sole and entire purpose 
of their existence. This earth is not a vale of tears : it 
depends alone upon men whether they will make it one. 
The earth is a paradise in which every happiness attends 
us, if we know how to make this paradise. First of all, 
we should lead a righteous and godly life; we should not 
renounce the joys of this earth, like monks, and pass our 
lives in gloomy brooding, but we should enjoy deeply and 
with gratitude the numerous cheering and moral pleasures 
with which the Creator of the world has blessed our earth. 
The doctrine that we should renounce all earthly pleasures 
is condemnable, because it opposes the will of God, who 
has given us the enjoyments of this world to make use of 
them. This doctrine produces either church-enthusiasts or 
hypocrites, and drives men into the arms of materialism. 
The effects of this can be easily perceived from John 
Huber's work, "The Ethical Question." He gives an 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 359 

extract from the diary of a materialist, R. Schurichts: 
"Enjoyment, intoxication, love, are good, and so is hatred, 
for it is the equivalent' where we can find no love. Posses- 
sion is good, because it can be transformed into enjoyment. 
Power is good, because it satisfies our pride. Truth is 
good so long as it gives us pleasure ; lying, perjury, hypoc- 
risy and flattery are good, if they bring us advantages. 
Faithfulness is good so long as it is rewarded ; treachery 
is good when it brings a higher price than faith. Marriage 
is good so long as it makes us happy, and adultery is good 
when marriage begins to be wearisome, or to him who 
loves a married person. Fraud, theft, robbery and murder 
are good, if they lead to wealth and enjoyment. Vengeance 
is good when it satisfies our self-respect. Life is good so 
long as it is an enigma ; but suicide is good when it solves 
this enigma." 

Surely, these are principles which must fill our hearts 
with horror. 

What else is left to man when, in consequence of his 
materialistic views, he knows no moral law besides himself, 
and makes his own selfishness the measure of his actions? 
If there is no longer the guiding influence of the Supreme 
Being in our hearts, we lose our conscience, the distinction 
between good and evil is obliterated, all moral responsi- 
bility ceases, and our conduct is guided only by the per- 
sonal advantages which it produces. Selfishness has been, 
and always will be, the mainspring of all the actions of 
the materialist. 

The root of all materialistic evil, as well as that of all 
anti-religious movements, is found, in the first instance, 
in the Christian dogmas, which are opposed to reason, 
and in the circumstance that men throw away religion 



360 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

with them at the same time; also in the indecision which 
is connected with half-education and half-culture; and it 
is self-evident that materialism is the main cause of the 
universal, visible, and constantly increasing misery. 

It is beyond all dispute that the increasing proportion 
of suicides arises mainly from the doctrines of materialism 
and other kindred doctrines which deny the existence of a 
Supreme Being, and which consider the human spirit as 
the result of the material substance of the brain, which 
comes to an end with the life of man. He who believes 
in a Supreme Being can never despair, no matter what 
hard fate may befall him. And if immortality is not 
merely an illusion of the brain, we must say to ourselves 
that he cannot lose with his life that which has tormented 
and troubled him; for the suicide commits that ruthless 
deed in order to destroy within him that which thinks — 
namely, his spirit. 

Among the opponents of religion, atheism comes next 
to materialism ; but, between these two, some other de- 
nominations are tc be taken into consideration, the fol- 
lowers of which do not absolutely deny the existence of a 
Supreme Being, nor yet recognize it. These are panthe- 
ism and agnosticism, which latter has made its appearance 
only in recent years. 

Pantheism teaches that there is no Supreme Being exist- 
ing outside and above the world, but a Spirit which is one 
and the same with the world, which penetrates it, and 
through the existence of which conditions and changes 
are revealed to us, in the rushing brook as well as in the 
flower, and also in the stars of the firmament ; which also 
dwells within man, and makes of every man a part of the 
Godhead. In this manner pantheism is really a worship 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 361 

of the world and nature, which were originally the basis 
of heathen philosophy, when men, fettered in the chains 
of the senses, thought they saw the Godhead in the rising 
sun, and worshiped it. Pantheism identifies and mingles 
the creature with the creator, the sensual with the hyper- 
sensual, appearance with reality; and the pantheist, 
thinking himself a part of the Godhead, must necessarily 
find it impossible to address the Supreme Being in prayer, 
because he would then pray to himself. 

Supposing the pantheistic doctrine to be correct, how 
can we explain sin which is committed by men ? God 
cannot sin ; but if the sinful man were a part of the God- 
head, God would sin. 

But man is not God, and cannot be a part of God. He 
must recognize something that is superior to himself; he 
must submit himself to God. Man may ignore this from 
carelessness or pride, but, at last, knowledge will come 
to him. This knowledge generally comes with important 
and deeply affecting events of his life. 

Agnosticism is a new philosophy, which has appeared 
only in recent times. It is related to atheism. It does 
not positively deny the existence of a Supreme Being, but 
takes good care not even to indicate it. The word 
agnosticism means not-knowing; and the agnostic main- 
tains that he is wanting in the faculty of understanding 
and believing in certain religious truths. His reply to the 
question whether there is a Supreme Being is a simple one : 
"I do not know." In the same evasive manner he will 
reply to the question relating to immortality. The agnostic 
thinks that he may rely on his own morality, in every 
instance in life, without God and without looking upward 
to the Supreme Being. 



362 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Agnosticism is an extreme feature of the superficial 
rationalism which lacks every religious support and every 
scientific basis, which destroys without the power of 
reconstructing, and which, because it is wanting in the 
ideal sense, cannot satisfy the longing after the ideal 
which dwells in every human soul. 

The agnostic does not maintain, like the atheist and 
the materialist, that his philosophy has entirely solved the 
enigma of life, for which the Christian seeks a solution in 
revelation; he acknowledges that his knowledge is only 
piecework, and he meets the theories and dogmas of the 
Church with respectful reserve. He gives no proof of the 
courage of convicton and faith. 

We come now to a consideration of atheism. 

Every phenomenon is preceded, and must be preceded, 
by causes; and such a determinate cause exists also to 
explain the appearance of atheism, which denies a Supreme 
Being. This cause is not to be found in the heart of man ; 
for that is attracted toward the Source of life, to the 
visible and invisible Author of creation, and, without an 
outward cause, would never deny the existence of a 
Supreme Being. This outer cause is the same which has 
given birth to materialism — namely, Christianity, which 
has tried to intrude upon man its dogmas, which are 
contradictory to reason. Instead of attacking the 
dogmas only, atheists threw away the belief in God with 
that of Christianity, and inscribed irreligion and god- 
lessness upon their standard. Atheism is the offspring 
of overbearing criticism; and where, with importunate 
self-consciousness, it has entered into publicity, it has 
generally proved to be the result of half-education an 
ignorance. 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 363 

The so-called upper classes of the eighteenth century 
made it a boast not to believe anything that could not be 
mathematically proved or perceived by the senses. They 
fancied themselves to have made immense progress when 
they either denied the existence of an invisible world or 
immortality altogether, or considered them of no import- 
ance. They delighted in a certain kind of skepticism, 
the substance of which was biting wit or sharp dialectics. 

In his work on Christianity, Radenhausen writes of the 
appearance of atheism as follows: "The rage of blind 
persecution which existed through many centuries, made 
Christianity one of the most bloodthirsty religions of the 
world. It was not until the eighteenth century that men 
of superior education freed themselves completely from 
the belief in the devil. But they did not know how to 
get rid of evil ; and that is the reason that men who had 
been shaken in their ideas about the government of the 
world, abandoned also the belief in a Supreme Being and 
became atheists, of which there were so many, two hundred 
years ago, that it was considered distinctive of a thinking 
man not to believe in God. We may connect this change 
with the immorality of those days, but in an inverse ratio; 
for the contempt of all law, human and divine, had pre- 
ceded it ; and, as immorality was the distinguishing mark 
of the upper classes, atheism prevailed in the most shame- 
less and barefaced manner, and the belief of the people 
was ruthlessly scorned and laughed at." 

Almost all atheistic tendencies which we meet in science 
and in life can be traced to the Christian dogmas in the 
first place, and then to the common first sentiment of all 
men — that so many things in this world are in apparent 
contradiction, at least to that which we think ourselves 



364 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

entitled to expect from Providence. Atheism tries to 
prove that, because certain conditions in the world do not 
agree with our views, there is nothing perfect in this 
world, which ought to be perfect if a God created it. Let 
us draw a parallel between things human and things 
created : Has a watch or a locomotive, which corresponds 
to our expectations, but which, in many respects, is capa- 
ble of improvement — hasii come into existence by an acci- 
dent, or is it not the work of an intelligent mind ? And if we 
see in the work of a great artist something the object of 
which we do not at once comprehend, should we not 
rather suppose that we are incapable of entering into his 
intentions, than consider the otherwise faultless produc- 
tion as the work of an inexperienced beginner ? And how 
much more should we consider the limits of our own 
reason in contemplating the wonderfully regulated house- 
hold of nature and of the universe, which we know only- 
partially ! 

Yet considerations of this kind are ridiculed by athe- 
ists. One of the heroes of atheism, in a lecture which he 
delivered in 1874, disputed the existence of God, for the 
reason that, in his opinion, the world was not at all ruled 
in a satisfactory manner, and that many contradictions 
were visible in nature. Among these, he criticised the 
size of the sun, which he considered disproportionately 
large ; that if it were smaller it would correspond better 
with the planetary system ; that the planets were not 
placed in systematic order ; that the human body had 
eyes only in front, and not in the back ; that man could 
only walk, and not fly. Indeed, it is very much to be re- 
gretted that this gentleman was not present at the creation 
of the world. Everything would have been done in a 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 365 

much more satisfactory manner : we should be able to fly, 

and should have eyes in the back of our heads. 

In contrast to such bombast, and with reference to the 

«. 

charges of atheism made against him by the clergy, Pro- 
fessor Tyndall, in a lecture delivered in Manchester, in 
October, 1874, said : "I have noticed, during years of 
self-observation, that it is not in hours of clearness and 
vigor that this doctrine commends itself to my mind ; 
that in the presence of stronger and healthier thought it 
ever dissolves and disappears, as offering no solution of 
the mystery in which we dwell, and of which we form a 
part. Often in the springtime, when looking with delight 
on the sprouting foliage, considering the lilies of the field, 
and sharing the general joy of opening life, I have asked 
myself whether there is no power, being, or thing, in the 
universe whose knowledge of that of which I am so igno- 
rant is greater than mine. I have said to myself: Can 
man's knowledge be the greatest knowledge, and man's 
life be the highest life? My friends, the profession of 
that atheism with which I am sometimes so lightly charged 
would, in my case, be an impossible answer to this ques- 
tion, — only slightly preferable to that fierce and distorted 
theism which still reigns rampant in some minds as the 
survival of a more ferocious age. But, quitting the more 
grotesque forms of the theological, I already see, emerg- 
ing from recent discussions, that wonderful plasticity of 
the theistic idea which enables it to maintain, through many 
changes, its hold upon superior minds." 

If we draw a comparison between religion and atheism, 
we generally find the following result : Religion endows 
us with pleasure and courage ; it teaches us modesty and 
moderation in prosperity, and comfort and relief in the 



366 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

time of trouble. It follows us, creating and spreading 
blessings from the cradle to the grave, and beautifies our 
last hours with cheering hope. Atheism, on the contrary, 
which considers conscience a prejudice, piety an illusion, 
justice an error, and selfishness as the criterion of our 
actions, makes man proud and overbearing when in pros- 
perity, leaves him helplessly exposed to the storms of pas- 
sions and affections, makes him depressed and discouraged 
in misfortune, and leaves him to despair. His heart is a 
waste and desolation. He looks without hope and com- 
fort into the future, unless, in the moment of danger and 
approaching misfortune, all the sophistry of his reason 
disappears like a shadow, and the thought of God and of 
divine help arises from the depths of his heart and brings 
comfort and salvation. 

There are many people who are atheists, or think they 
are, without being acquainted with the principles of athe- 
ism. We meet with such people at all times. They are 
driven along with the current of their surroundings in the 
same way as the followers of the Church, and imagine that 
they are liberal-minded people. Experience teaches us, 
to our sorrow, that no system, however foolish, has not 
found its followers ; indeed, the more senseless and irra- 
tional certain doctrines may be, if they only appeal to the 
selfishness and passions of the masses, the more willing 
followers they will find. These half-educated people, who 
are quite incapable of forming an opinion on matters of 
abstract knowledge, pretend to understand everything, and 
do not hesitate to express the most absurd ideas. 

The popularizing of natural science has no doubt con- 
tributed in modern times to the spreading of atheism. 
We do not wish to attach any blame to this movement; 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 367 

on the contrary, it is deserving of the praise and support 
of all who can contribute to it, because it is an element 
which furthers education and, consequently, civilization. 
The mischief is this — that many readers, even among the 
educated classes, are not yet ripe for the study of natural 
science, even in its popularized form. They do not yet 
comprehend what they have read, but consider themselves 
as full of knowledge as the scholar who has worked for 
many years to obtain those results which, in a popular 
form, he presents to those of the people who are in want 
of education. 

The atheist, who does not believe in Providence, in a 
regulated government of the world, must look upon every- 
thing that happens as an accident, a blind accident. But 
accident is the reverse of regular and natural order. 
Whence comes this order, the influence of which we feel 
in the greatest as well as in the smallest; which we observe 
in the whole universe, in the structure and life of the 
smallest animal, which is not visible to the naked eye; in 
the fruits of the field, in the trees of the forest, in the 
movement of the world of stars? Is that not a great and 
irrefutable proof of the existence and working of an eternal 
and sublime spirit ? 

You say everything is chance. Look into the structure 
which stands before your eyes. The single stone could 
not know of what use it was to be; but the architect who 
uses it knows. Look at the horses before the carriage. 
They run along without knowing what is the object of 
their work, but he who makes them run, who feeds them 
and conducts them, knows their destination. And if man 
is able to rule and conduct that which is lifeless or without 
reason, and knows how to take advantage of every useful 



368 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

idea, so an almighty Spirit leads us men, influences our 
fate, and unconsciously we assist in furthering his sublime 
purposes. We are compelled to further them. 

Accident is a strange word, and is often used in a very 
thoughtless and irrational manner. The God who rules 
our destiny knows of no accident. And our life, composed 
of thousands of presumed accidents which are intimately 
connected with each other, forms one strong chain of 
which not one link can be spared. Look around, look at 
the present time, and many a circumstance appears to you 
as an accident. Look back into your past life, and see if 
a single one of those so-called accidents was unnecessary 
to lead you where you stand now. Not one. They were 
all links of one chain. Many a man who has sunk low 
may say to himself: "I have not always been so wicked; 
I became so because I lost the belief in God and Provi- 
dence, and in everything that is good in this world. I 
became weak, and was not able to fight against experience 
and ill-fortune; I lost the sentiment of right and wrong; 
I became wicked because it seemed more easy and more 
comfortable to take the path of selfishness than to remain 
in the path of righteousness and good works." How 
many have arrived at such a crisis ! The cause of this is 
principally to be found in the fact that religiousness 
necessitates certain moral obligations, which these people 
would like to avoid, in order to follow their passions and 
selfish inclinations — the natural effect of a natural cause. 
The more irreligious a man is, the more he will lose the 
strength to withstand temptation; for he has lost the 
inner support which strengthens us to do good. 

He who expects to find freedom in his renunciation of 
God, becomes the slave of a selfishness which tears asunder 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 369 

all bonds of love and justice uniting us with our fellow- 
man, and which destroys even the happiest family ties. 
Many a one who has walked on this downward path has 
lost all joy and happiness. He had no idea whither the 
road on which he had entered would lead him. If we could 
look into the hearts of suicides, we should find that all who 
have ended their lives by this crime had lost confidence 
and belief in God and in Divine Providence. 

To take away the belief in God and immortality from 
man means to deprive him of all joys of life, to destroy 
all feeling for virtue, all family happiness with a ruthless 
hand. Only where the belief in God is deeply rooted in 
the heart can love for our fellow-creatures flourish and be 
healthfully developed, and the golden fruit of peace, happi- 
ness and public welfare reach maturity. He who tears the 
belief in God out of his heart destroys also hope and love, 
and changes it into a desolate waste. 

Oettingen says, in his " Statistics of Morals :" " In all 
phenomena of corruption the most characteristic is that 
truly fiendish law of heartless selfishness which has its root 
in irreligion, and which results in hopelessness. Why? 
Because it is born of suspicious doubt in a divine order of 
things, in a union of necessity and freedom ; in short, 
because it ruthlessly destroys that beautiful problem which is 
before us. It destroys confidence in the divine, ruling love ; 
it rejects childlike obedience as something unworthy of 
man, and thinks that the authoritative ordering of the con- 
ditions of nature is an attempt to interfere with the absolute 
right of the individual. Thus history is changed into a play 
of accidents ; will becomes lawless ; chaos has returned ; 
and death and corruption appear as the hopeless end of the 
purposeless and undignified turmoil which we call life." 

24 



370 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Thomas Paine says: "Do we want to contemplate 
God's power ? We see it in the immensity of the crea- 
tion. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom ? We see 
it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensi- 
ble whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate his 
munificence ? We see it in the abundance with which he 
fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? 
We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from 
the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is ? 
Search not the book called the Scriptures, which any human 
hand might make, but the Scriptures called the Creation. 

" The only idea man can affix to the name of God is 
that of a first cause, the cause of all things. And, incom- 
prehensible and difficult as it is for a man to conceive 
what a first cause is, he arrives at the belief of it from the 
tenfold greater difficulty of disbelieving it. It is difficult 
beyond description to conceive that space can have no 
end ; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It is 
difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal 
duration of what we call time ; but it is more impossible 
to conceive a time when there shall be no time. In like 
manner of reasoning, everything we behold carries in 
itself the internal evidence that it did not make itself. 
Every man is an evidence to himself that he did not make 
himself; neither could his father ma*ke himself, nor his 
grandfather, nor any of his race ; neither could any tree, 
plant, or animal make itself; and it is the conviction 
arising from this evidence that carries us on, as it were by 
necessity, to the belief of a first cause eternally existing, 
of a nature totally different from any material existence 
we know of, and by the power of which all things exist ; 
and this first cause man calls God. 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 371 

" What more does man want to know than that the 
hand, or power, that made these things is divine, is om- 
nipotent ? Let him believe this with the force it is im- 
possible to repel, if he permits his reason to act, and his 
rule of moral life will follow of course." 

Some years ago, in Kentucky, an atheist preacher made 
his appearance, <.f whom an eye-witness reports as follows : 
" It was Sunday evening. In the little town where I was 
staying there had been no divine service during the day. 
When it was dark and the streets were deserted, I took my 
steps to a neighboring wood, in order to be alone with 
my God. I had walked a little distance when I saw a 
light shining among the trees and heard the loud voice of 
a man. Thinking that I should find some religious meet- 
ing, I broke my way through the brushwood. A strange 
scene presented itself to my eyes. A sort of pulpit had 
been constructed of a pile of wooden blocks. It was 
lighted up by two torches, and before it were several rows 
of wooden benches, which were occupied by about two 
hundred people. 

" The sight rather attracted me at the beginning, but I 
was terrified when the words which that man uttered 
reached my ear. With irreverent, bombastic words he 
preached the doctrine of unbelief, and attacked the belief 
in God with miserable jokes and scorn. It seemed to me 
as if a child with his bow and arrow attempted to shoot 
down a high mountain. Many of the audience seemed to 
listen with approval, whilst others appeared indifferent. 
When the speaker had finished he sat down, proud of the 
applause which he received, and looked around in a self- 
satisfied, victorious manner. Whilst I was considering 
whether I should leave, or make an attempt to refute him, 



372 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

a man arose in the background and asked permission to 
speak. It was an old man, with gray hair, leaning upon a 
staff, who now made a speech, which, simple as it was, 
made such an impression on me that I shall not forget it 
as long as I live. 

" ' Neighbors,' he said, ' I have lived many years among* 
you. Seventy winters have bowed me down and have 
bleached my hair. I know you will listen to me. Over 
there in the churchyard I have buried two noble boys, 
and I look upon their graves as a bridge connecting me 
with the other world, which yonder scoffer wishes to rep- 
resent as an impossibility ; but now I will prove to you 
that there is a future world, and that he himself believes 
in it and is afraid of it. 

" ' You all know the waterfall there below, the noise of 
which we can even now hear. A few days ago I stood 
above it, on the banks of the river, where the current of 
the stream becomes more rapid every moment. I saw a 
man in a boat which had just left the opposite shore to 
cross the river. When he had arrived in the middle of 
the current, one of his oars broke, and in his attempt to 
repair the damage he lost the other. I shall never forget 
the expression of terror which now spread over his face. 
He did not see me, but his loud cries for help resounded 
far away. One whirlpool after the other twirled his little 
boat and drew it nearer and nearer to the fall. Then he 
ceased his cries for help and fell down upon his knees to 
pray. I will not attempt to repeat his self-accusations 
and promises for the future . With the help of a neighbor, 
who was working close by, we succeeded in saving that 
man from certain death. A few minutes before he had been 
on the threshold of eternity; now he was safe on the shore. 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 373 

1 ' ' That is the man who is sitting yonder ! When God's 
powerful hand was about to take him into eternity, he 
prayed and promised to mend : now he blasphemes and 
denies that God upon whom he called, and who graciously 
granted his prayer. ' 

"The eyes of all fell upon the first speaker. Pale as 
the light of the moon which was shining upon him, he 
sat motionless; with clenched fists, he looked toward 
heaven with a frightened and wild expression. Then he 
jumped up, stood for a moment still, then, rushing through 
the crowd, hurried into the wood, where he disappeared. 
An involuntary shriek of horror came from the people, 
who had stood for a moment as if spellbound, and then 
silently dispersed. The old man and I alone remained on 
the spot. I seized his hand, and we wept together." 

How often do such emotional events take place ! And 
there are no cases wanting where men who had led a life 
without God, returned to him when the end came near. 
An eloquent witness of this class we find in the poet 
Heinrich Heine, who was an acknowledged atheist during 
the whole of his life, who scorned religion with his biting 
wit. He spared nothing. He returned finally to God. 
In the epilogue to his *'Romancero" he writes as follows: 
"Yes, I have returned to God, like the Prodigal Son. 
After having tended for many years the hogs with the 
Hegelites, I became homesick for heaven, and wandered 
forth through mountains and woods, over the most difficult 
passes of Dialectics. On my road I found the God of 
Pantheism, but I could not use him. This poor, melan- 
choly being is interwoven with the world and, as it were, 
imprisoned in it, and yawns before you helpless and with- 
out will. In order to have a will it is necessary to be a 



374 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

person. If we want a God, we must accept his personality, 
his superiority to the world, and his holy attributes, all- 
goodness, all-wisdom and all-justice ; and then we get the 
immortality of the soul, as it were, into the bargain." 

Happy the man who is at peace with God before the 
shades of death fall on his bed ! Unbelief trembles before 
death ; faith is triumphant. 

The Abbe Lamennais says, in his ' ' Words of a Believer : ' ' 
" There are men who do not love God and do not fear him. 
Flee from them, for a vapor of damnation arises from them. 

"Flee the godless, for his breath is killing; but do not 
hate him ; for who knows if God has not turned his heart 
already ? 

"A man who even candidly confesses that he does not 
believe, often deceives himself. In the depth of his heart 
there is a root of faith which cannot wither. 

" The words which deny God burn our lips. 

"The ungodly stands alone in the universe. All 
creatures praise Gcd; everybody who feels blesses him; 
everybody who thinks worships him ; the stars of the day 
and the stars of the night sing to him in their mysterious 
language. He has written his holy name on the firmament ; 
he has also written it in the heart of man, and the righteous 
keep it there lovingly." 

As long as the greatest minds lead men on the road to 
progress, to the glorification of the spirit, religious senti- 
ments will be ennobled and strengthened. Their powerful 
sayings do not perish, because they are verified by history 
and science, by the authority of eminent thinkers and 
poets, by the demands of increasing civilization and the 
wants of a better future, and — to name the first last — by 
the holy instincts of man's nature. 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 375 

Look at the beams of sunlight which fall into your 
room. You see in them millions of little atoms in con- 
tinual motion, but which are not visible when they are not 
lighted up by the sun. Thus it is with the sunlight of 
truth. In its light you recognize the errors which have 
surrounded you. 



The Spirit of Man and Immortality. 



The human life is like a book in two volumes, full of 
instruction. The first of these volumes is open before us ; 
but the second is closed, and will not be opened until the 
hour of our death. 

Man stands at the head of the material world. His 
spirit, which proceeds from, and returns to, the Spirit of 
the world, the Supreme Being, is the essence of his life. 
His body is only its transitory form ; and the belief in 
immortality is the bridge which leads us into the other 
world, where the spirit is destined to be loosened from 
the fetters of the senses and advance to a higher develop- 
ment. It is a light which throws a glimmer into the dark 
life of the future. 

The belief in immortality dwelt in the heart of man 
long before the origin of Christianity, although the pagan 
nations did not regard immortality as a purely spiritual 
life, but hoped for the enjoyment of sensual desires in the 
other world, without the trouble of earthly cares. Like 
the Indians of to-day, they imagined a future world where 
they would find everything that was agreeable to them, 
which satisfied the wants of their earthly existence ; for 
this purpose they put arms, household utensils and other 
things, into the graves of their departed. This is indeed 
a childlike form of belief in immortality, but, neverthe- 
less, it is a proof that during all times there have been a 
desire and a hope in the heart of man for immortality. 
This feeling is not educated, but born within us. The 
missionary Livingstone found in Central Africa, among 

(376) 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 377 

the most uncultivated tribes, whom all travelers have rep- 
resented as standing on the very lowest steps of civiliza- 
tion, an indication that they had some presentiment of a 
future life. 

Nevertheless/ the immortality of the human spirit is 
frequently considered as an open question, as a problem 
which the human mind is not able to solve. Numerous 
writings have been published about this most important 
subject, without reaching any definite conclusion; and 
there are some among the modern scientists who altogether 
deny the possibility of a future existence. But is immor- 
tality an unsolved or unsolvable problem, or is it not 
almost a certainty? Nature and science teach us that 
nothing in this world which has once been created is per- 
ishable ; that the primary matter from which everything 
in this world proceeds does not perish, but remains the 
same. However, it may change in form, so that that 
which composes our human body to-day will in fifty or 
a hundred years supply food for a future generation. If 
you burn wood or coal, not an atom is lost : a large por- 
tion becomes a part of the atmosphere which is necessary 
for the existence of men, animals and plants. Only the 
form of the body and the relation of its composites perish, 
but not the actual matter. What once exists cannot be 
annihilated. Chemistry teaches us that in a thousand 
cases what we call extinction, and what appears to us to 
be lost altogether, is only a change of form. All matter 
continues in constant rotation, constant union and disso- 
lution, withering and blooming, an apparent extinction 
and a new life. 

If we now assume that nothing which exists in the world 
or the universe can be destroyed, but is only subject to a 



378 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

change of form, should the spirit of man, the offspring of 
the eternal spirit of the world, be subject to annihilation, 
or should it rather be assured of eternal existence ? In- 
deed, where nothing perishes, the spirit of man also cannot 
perish ; it will and must inherit eternal life. And if mil- 
lions of years go by, the spirit, the life of our life, cannot 
perish. 

Does it require further proof of the immortality of the 
spirit ? There are many more. 

There is an indestructible desire and hope and belief in 
immortality in all mankind which nothing can extinguish. 
And is it possible that the Supreme Being could have 
planted so firmly within us this deep longing, this cheerful 
hope, this steady belief, this undeniable presentiment of 
immortality, only to prepare for us the most fatal of all 
disappointments ? No ; these feelings could not be born 
within us if the fulfillment of them were not absolutely 
certain. We should have to doubt God's fatherly love 
and justice, to assume that he would have created these 
longings within us without giving them perfect satisfaction 
finally. 

There would be no sense in the whole life and work of 
man, his striving after perfection, if our spiritual being 
came to an end with bodily dissolution. Man could not 
fulfill his destiny if the spiritual gifts which he has brought 
with him into the world were not to be fully developed. 

Can our present life be reasonably supposed to be the 
only intention of our existence, and of the existence of 
mankind in general ? 

Is it not a proof of the truth of this presentiment of im- 
mortality that we are continually striving after moral 
perfection, after a perfection which we cannot reach here ? 



THE : PIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 379 

Why should this longing and desire be within us if they 
did not find final satisfaction ? 

Should the spirit of a being which is able to imagine 
eternal life not also be imperishable ? 

Should the immortality of the Supreme Being, of the 
eternal Spirit of the world, not be a pledge for the im- 
mortality of our own spirit, which proceeds from the 
Spirit of the world ? 

Does the religious principle within us not indicate a 
being which is intended for a higher union than that with 
the visible world ? 

Does not our whole destiny, the aim of all morality, 
become more elevated when we see immortality as a guiding 
star before us ? 

The little grain of seed contains the future plant, with 
its leaves, with the germ of the blossom, and the fruit ; in 
the caterpillar and the chrysalis of insects we discover 
traces of the future wings. All these germs bear evidence 
of a future destiny; and man, the mediator between two 
worlds, who belongs half to the world of the spirit and 
half to the world of dust, — should he carry within him for 
nothing all these germs and indications of a future exist- 
ence ? Nature, which forms and prepares everything for 
the future, and keeps so faithfully its promises, would be- 
come a lie in this instance, where it has reached the climax 
of visible creation. 

Are there really people who do not believe in immor- 
tality? If the child in the mother's womb could think, 
could it be persuaded that some day it would be freed from 
its shell and enjoy in open air the vivifying light and 
warmth of the sun ? Would it not rather believe in the 
impossibility of such a state of existence ? And do those 



380 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

who reject the belief in immortality reason more sensibly 
than the unborn child, if they will not accept as a truth 
that which they cannot perceive with their earthly organs? 
One look into the inexhaustible variety of nature, a sensi- 
ble consideration of all causes which make the idea of the 
immortality of the spirit in the highest degree possible — 
indeed, as good as certain — should convince them of the 
instability of their conclusion. 

Plato says, in his " Phaedon :" " If our spirit is mortal, 
then our reason is nothing but a dream ; then virtue loses 
all the splendor which makes it divine in our eyes ; then 
all that is beautiful, moral and sublime is not a reflection 
of divine perfection, for nothing that is perishable can 
contain even a trace of divine perfection ; then we are 
placed here, like animals, to seek food and to die ; then 
a few days after our death it will be the same whether we 
have been an ornament or a disgrace to creation — whether 
we have endeavored to increase the number of the happy 
or the miserable ; then the most degraded man has the 
power to evade the divine rule, and a dagger can cut the 
tie which joins man to God. If our spirit is perishable, 
then the wisest lawgivers and founders of human society 
have cheated either us or themselves; then the whole 
human race has agreed upon speaking an untruth, and to 
honor the deceivers who have invented it ; then a state of 
free, thinking beings is nothing but a herd of irrational 
beasts ; and man — I shudder at the very thought of con- 
sidering him in this depraved condition — once deprived 
of the hope of immortality, this miraculous being becomes 
the most miserable animal upon earth, who, to his misery, 
is able to reflect on his condition, and must fear death 
and despair." In another part Plato says : " The body is 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 381 

the prison from which the soul * must be delivered before 
it is able to understand real and unchangeable condi- 
tions." 

Cicero says: "If I consider the faculties with which 
the human soul is endowed — the rapidity of thought, the 
wonderful faculty to remember former events, the acute- 
ness with which it looks into the future, the innumerable 
treasures of arts and sciences — then I gain absolute cer- 
tainty that this always active and comprehensive principle 
cannot be perishable; that this unceasing activity of the 
soul does not proceed from the outside, but rests upon an 
inner, essential power; and I come to the unavoidable 
conclusion that its activity must continue forever. ' ' 

Plutarch says: "Not with weeping and lamentations 
should we follow the burial of good people, but with songs 
of praise and gratitude that they have ceased to be mortals, 
and have passed into a better life." 

Pythagoras says : "When thy spirit has left the body, 
thou wilt be free from mortality and dwell with the gods." 

A Mohammedan philosopher, Al-Gazzali, in the beginning 
of the eleventh century, wrote: "God has created the 
human spirit from a drop of his own spirit, and its destiny 
is to return to God. Do not deceive thyself with the idea 
that the spirit will die with the body. The form in which 
thou hast entered the world is not the same which thou 
hast now; therefore, it is not necessary that the spirit 
should perish with the body. The spirit is only a stranger 
in this world, and has only a temporary abode here. After 

*The difference between soul and spirit is an idea of modern times; 
and we must not think it strange that in the writings of the ancient, 
and even later, authors we read of the immortality of the soul. In 
the works of those authors soul and spirit are synonymous. 



382 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

the temptations and storms of this peaceless life, we shall 
be united with God and find eternal peace — peace without 
care, joy without pain, strength without weakness, knowl- 
edge without doubt, a delightful insight into the source of 
life, light and splendor — that source from which we have 
proceeded." 

The Hindoo Bhagavadgita says : ' ' The soul is the princi- 
ple of life, which divine wisdom has intended to give life 
to the body. The body is perishable and mortal; the 
soul, which thinks and acts, is immortal. There is a 
superior, invisible and. eternal life which cannot perish, 
whatever else may perish ; and those who have gained this 
life will never return." 

In a Buddhist work we find the following expression : 
"Man does not die: the soul inhabits the body only for 
a time, and leaves it again after a time. The soul is myself, 
the body is only my temporary dwelling. Birth is not 
birth: the soul is there already, and lives before the body 
is begotten. Death is not death : when the body dies the 
soul ascends." 

Thus, as we see, the idea of immortality existed long 
before Christianity, and has been kept alive through all 
times. From time to time a philosopher has appeared who 
has denied immortality ; but he has never been able to 
prove his assertion. Yet the great majority of philosophers 
have belonged to the champions of immortality ; among 
these are Leibnitz, Genlieux, Malebranche, and others. 
Even Kant, that severe thinker, who would not accept 
any compromise, and who banished all that is super- 
sensual from the domain of human knowledge, considered 
the idea of immortality as a necessary corollary of practical 
reason. 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 383 

The fact that all nations of antiquity were in the habit 
of offering sacrifices to the spirits of their dead, or 
addressed prayers to them, is a further proof that they 
entertained the belief in immortality. Greeks and Romans, 
Hindoos and Chinese, were in the habit of making sacri, 
flees upon the graves of their departed, on the anniversary 
of their deaths, and of addressing prayers to them. AncJ 
do we not do the same to this day ? Do we not put flowers 
upon the graves of our dear departed ? Surely, we do not 
do this to honor the decaying body below, but to honor 
the spirit which has once dwelt in that body, and of 
which we believe that it now enjoys a superior state of 
existence. 

Let us look upon the ancient nations. 

The old Greeks and Romans believed in a continuation 
of the spirit under another form, and also in a world of 
the spirits of the departed, which they called Hades, or 
the Lower World. 

The Pythagoreans taught that the soul would be free 
from the fetters of the body, would enter the world of the 
dead, would dwell there for a longer or shorter period in 
a state of transition, would enter again an animal or human 
body, until it was purified sufficiently to return to its 
source. 

The Essenes considered the belief in immortality as the 
only foundation of virtue. 

The Mohammedans also believe in immortality. 

Zoroaster, the prophet of the Persians, promised to 
those who withstood temptation and who did good, im- 
mortality in regions of the highest splendor. 

The old Egyptians believed that the soul of the 
departed had to undergo different changes, and that he 



384 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

who was not virtuous would enter into the body of an 
animal. 

The heathen Germans believed that the spirits of brave 
men went to Wotan, the father of the gods, who dwells in 
Walhalla ; the cowards went into a world of mist. 

The belief in a future life prevails universally among 
the Hindoos and Buddhists. If one of them dies, they do 
not say that he is dead, but that his spirit has departed. 

The Brahmins maintain the belief in immortality ; and 
the Vedas teach that man should purify his soul by devo- 
tion, and that after the death of the body it enters another 
form, according to its measure of worthiness, until at last 
it reaches the infinite Being from whom it has proceeded. 

According to the idea of the ancient Etruscans, the 
spirit of the deceased remained in the house, and became 
a guardian spirit, in case the departed had been a good 
man ; if he had not led a righteous life, his spirit would 
become a spectre, which would haunt the house. 

The ancient Celts gave letters and orders for future re- 
wards in heaven to their dead. They also put shoes on 
them, that they might not be barefooted on their journey 
to the lower world. 

The heathen Slavs placed food by the side of their 
dead, and believed that their spirits were ghostlike shadows 
until their bodies were buried. 

The old inhabitants of Esthland, Livland and Kurland 
with their dead burned their horses and arms for use in 
the other world. 

However different all these views of immortality may 
be, they show irrefutably that among all ancient nations 
this belief existed in one ©r another form, however differ- 
ent from our own views theirs may have been. This belief 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 3 8 5 

exists among those nations who to this date are living in 
their natural state, without culture. 
Let us look for a moment at these. 
The Ostiaks and Laps bury their dead in little boats 
for use in the other world. According to their ideas, the 
soul has to travel through darkness and thorny bushes 
before it reaches the abode of the happy. They give their 
dead hatchets and other tools, and the means to make 
light, so that they may cut their way through the thorns 
and give light to the darkness. 

The Esquimaux believe that after awhile they rise again 
from their graves, and will take their muskets and other 
implements which have been buried with them, and wan- 
der until they reach a great river. Here they will stop 
to drink from the water; and, if they have loved their 
wife and child, and have hunted to provide for them, 
have assisted their neighbors, led a peaceful life, and com- 
mitted no murder, the water will taste well to them ; and 
a boat will come across the river and take them to the 
other side, to the land of the blessed. 

The Kamtschatkan, after his death, has to walk across a 
swinging bridge without railing, and so narrow that only 
one soul can cross it at a time. He hopes that his soul will 
be again united to his body, and that he will then lead a 
life of work, but of happiness and contentment. 

The Kalmucks believe that immediately after death the 
spirit of the god Abida comes to take away the soul. The 
pure soul he leaves to hover in the air ; the soul of the im- 
pure he blows away, after having rolled it up, and then it 
is at liberty to enter the body of a man or an animal; 
which explains the circumstance that so many living people 
have the manners and habits of others that have been 



25 



386 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

dead long ago. The dead walk on a copper road to the 
dwelling of the Tengren, the abode of repose, where they 
have to wait until they are considered worthy to enter 
paradise. 

The Greenlander, in order to reach the abode of the 
dead, must for many days climb over rugged rocks, which 
are often stained with his own blood. The rest of the 
journey after this is still full of danger, if it has to be made 
in winter or in stormy weather. In order to make the 
journey easy for the departed soul, those who remain 
behind must for five days abstain from certain food, and 
avoid all noisy work except the necessary fishing ; after 
that, there can be no doubt about the safe arrival of the 
departed in the land of the blessed. 

The souls of the Schaman Siberians are exposed to the 
attacks of unholy spirits which try to harm them. 

The Telentian and Korack Schamans attempt to allay 
the spirits of the earth, at the funerals of the dead, by 
certain prayers, and by fighting in the air with a hatchet. 
The bodies of the dead are put upon trees, and are either 
burned or left to decay, to make sure that the souls escape 
the attacks of the evil spirits. 

The Tcheremissians put a club by the side of the dead, 
to drive away the hellish bloodhounds ; they hope that the 
dead will always have cattle and bees in abundance ; that 
they will be free from all disease, and be immortal. 

Many nations of Eastern and Northern Asia imagine 
the other world to be a cheerful and agreeable abode, 
where the departed live without trouble and according to 
their wishes. The woods are full of game, the rivers 
abound in fish, the trees are full of fruits, and the earth 
offers its treasures without labor. 






THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 387 

According to the idea of the Caribbees, the righteous 
will find in the other world a rich plain upon which 
apricot-trees are planted, bearing fruit in abundance. 
The cowards and the unrighteous have to cross the moun- 
tains into a sterile and desolate region, where they have 
to serve as slaves to their enemies, and where they have 
to lead a life of hardship and trouble. 

The traveler Richardson heard from an old Indian of 
the Crees, on Hudson Bay, that the departed souls had to 
climb with great difficulty over a steep mountain, whence 
they enjoy the view of a vast plain which abounds in game 
of all kinds, and where happy people dwell in new tents 
and wear new fur clothes. As soon as they behold the 
soul of the righteous on the mountain, they go and lead 
him down; but the wicked, particularly murderers, are 
pushed down from the rock. 

The old Mexicans believed in the transmigration of 
souls. The souls of the nobles went into beautiful, sweetly 
singing birds ; those of the common people into weasels 
and all kinds of common insects. 

The Patagonians think that their dead dwell in caves 
with kind gods, the chief of whom is the god of death. 
Their idea of happiness consists in a continued state of 
intoxication. The wizards, who are held in great venera- 
tion among the Patagonians, assert that by beating their 
drums and shaking their enchanted boxes they can see 
below the ground men and beasts, and whole vaults full 
of rum and brandy. They think that the stars are the 
departed Patagonians. 

The Chibchas, a nation in New Granada, think that the 
righteous after death enjoy all the pleasures of life in an 
abundant manner. 



388 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The old Peruvians divided the world after death ac- 
cording to caste. The common people went to the lower 
world, the nobles to the sun. 

The old Chilians thought the abode of the blessed was 
on the other side of the ocean, where a superabundance 
of meat and strong drinks was to be found. Their para- 
dise was full of beautiful women, always ready to wait 
upon the men and prepare fermented drinks for them. 

The Mamoacas delighted so much in the antics of the 
ape, that they filled their paradise with these animals for 
the enjoyment of the blessed. 

The South Sea Islanders believe that the souls of their 
nobles, who have many servants and hogs, assemble 
on the top of a high mountain, whence they sink down 
into a happy country where all kinds of precious food 
grow in abundance, and which is made beautiful by the 
tranquil waters of an azure sea, where the blessed feed in 
abundance and bathe at their pleasure. The slaves and 
poor come into a dark country with slimy water. 

The Battas distinguish six heavens. The good people 
who have been kind and peaceful, if they do not belong 
to the nobility, go into the third heaven ; the nobility go 
into the sixth heaven, and the wicked, as a punishment, 
must wander about the earth. 

Even more numerous are the heavens among the Sintos, 
in Japan, where the virtuous reach the highest, the thirty- 
third. 

The Ibos and the Odschi, negro tribes in Africa, worship 
one godhead, which has created everything, the black and 
the white. The name of this godhead is Tschucku. It 
has two eyes and two ears, the one in heaven and the other 
upon earth; it never slumbers, and is invisible upon earth, 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 389 

bu^ the righteous can see it after death ; the wicked are 
burned. 

However low the negro may be in his religious ideas, 
the belief in a life after death is found in almost all tribes. 

The Kaffirs honor the souls of the departed with particu- 
lar respect. Also, the rude tribes of Jacoba, the Marghi 
and M'Pongwes, have particular rites dedicated to the 
spirits of the departed. 

The Shekani and Bakeles also have great reverence for 
the bodies of the dead. The Yorubas and Susus believe 
that the spirit of a dead person sometimes enters the body 
of his grandchild and causes disease. In Nufsi the belief 
prevails that the wicked who are not punished in this life 
are punished by God afterward. Many negro tribes, as, 
for instance, the Odschi, think that the Milky Way is the 
heavenly road by which the good reach the union with 
God and with their ancestors. 

Most of the North American Indian tribes believe that 
man has two souls, the best of which, after death, is sent 
into a sunny land. 

According to the belief of the Hurons, the soul is parted 
from the body at death, but remains at the grave until the 
funeral festival, when it is changed into a turtle dove, or 
goes immediately into the abode of the spirits. The second 
soul — the Hurons believe in two souls — remains with the 
body in the grave until it is reproduced by somebody in 
the form of a child. According to this idea of transmi- 
gration of souls, they assume that many a living person 
resembles, in his own being and life, one of the dead. 

The Selish, in the interior of Oregon, look upon beavers 
as men whom the great Spirit has transformed for some act 
of disobedience. 



390 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

If many Indians believe in the existence of two souls, 
the Caribbees presume even three. The soul which dwells 
in the heart becomes happy after death ; the two other 
souls, which dwell in the arms and the head respectively, 
do not partake of the happiness of the soul of the heart. 

The Chiriguanas, in South America, believe that the 
departed frequently reappear in the shape of animals. 

The Aracaunians bury their males with weapons and 
provisions, and their females with kitchen utensils and 
the spinning-wheel, which they may use in a future life. 
They throw ashes on the road on which the dead is carried 
\o the grave, so that his soul may not return from the 
regions of the spirits. 

Among the Manjacicas a priest is called in to take the 
soul to the regions of the other world. The priest pours 
water on the ground to purify the soul. 

The Guaranis, in Paraguay, leave room in the grave of 
the dead so that the soul may have space to remain by the 
body. 

This is more than sufficient testimony to show that the 
belief in immortality exists even among the most unculti- 
vated nations. Traces of this belief are found in all parts 
of the world and among all nations, even amongst those 
who stand on the lowest step of culture and intelligence. 

And we find among ourselves, and in our whole lives, 
many indications of immortality, Among these, there is 
that peculiar phenomenon which, as we have a presenti- 
ment of life after death, gives us an idea that our spirit 
existed before it became conscious on this earth — that is to 
say, that it has had a previous existence. Certain events 
occur quite unexpectedly in our lives, sometimes events of 
very little importance, which force us to ask with astonish- 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 391 

ment whether we have not experienced this before ; yet 
the most careful reflection does not enlighten us where and 
when it could have taken place. 

Volkett says, in his work on the soul: "It happens 
often that in the midst of our thoughts we are suddenly 
touched by a familiar sound, which disappears again in a 
moment. It is like a breath of thought which only reaches 
the extreme limits of our consciousness ; we try to catch 
it, but it has already disappeared. We feel as if something 
quite familiar, but belonging to a period long gone by, 
were touching our memory." 

Many authors who have written on the life of the soul 
have spoken of the same phenomenon, for instance, 
Professor Knight, who says : ' l Very many can testify, before 
their own consciousness at least, to the following experi- 
ence. We hear a sound, see an object, or suffer a sensa- 
tion which takes us directly out of the circle of sense-per- 
ception possible to us in our present existence." 

Can this feeling, this sensation, be anything else than 
the remembrance of a former spiritual life ? Do they not 
point to a previous existence of our spirit, and are they 
not a proof of it? Plato says, that if our spirit is im- 
mortal, it must naturally have had an existence previously 
to our natural life. This sensation, which, as it were, 
permits a view into a former existence, may be doubted 
by many to whom it is new, and who may never have 
experienced it. Nevertheless, it is a positive truth, like 
other phases of our spiritual life which are not understood, 
and are therefore falsely judged. The dream-life, fore- 
bodings, presentiments, somnambulism, clairvoyance and 
second-sight, belong to these. It would be in vain to 
try to explain the phenomena of spiritual life, these facts 



392 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

of a super-sensual world, for that which is above our senses 
cannot be explained by means of them ; on the contrary, 
we must rely upon proved and actually accomplished facts, 
to deny which would be as foolish as the belief in miracles. 
Somnambulism furnishes us a beautiful proof of the 
assertion that the human spirit is a free power, which, in 
spite of its limitations by the body, can be independent 
of it and visibly active. Somnambulists will arise in the 
midst of a perfectly sound sleep and begin to work at their 
usual occupation, or at one which is entirely strange to 
them, with greater skill than they would be able to exercise 
in a waking condition. The fact that when they are 
awake they have not the slightest recollection of what they 
have done in their sleep, is a proof that their senses were 
perfectly unconscious whilst asleep, and that the spirit 
does not require these senses for its activity. The strangest 
phenomenon is this — that somnambulists, during the hours 
of their nightly work, are perfectly conscious of what they 
were doing when awake, and also of what they did in 
former hours of somnambulism. This has been established 
by the work which they have performed in their sleep. 
Others have arisen in the middle of the night and sat 
down at their desks, working, while sleeping, as if they 
were awake; returned to their beds in the same condition, 
slept till morning, and found their work lying finished 
on the table. For instance, Condillac wrote, in this con- 
dition, his "Cours d' Etudes;" mathematicians like 
Krueger solved the most difficult problems ; the celebrated 
printer Operinus continued in the night, sleeping, the 
most difficult proof-work, which he had begun on the 
pievious evening; Haller and others wrote poetry; 
musicians composed music ; and so forth. A young 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 393 

French clergyman used to rise in the middle of the night, 
sleeping, sit down at his desk, and write out a part of his 
sermon. The frequent corrections and improvements 
which he made in his writing were sufficient proof that 
this was not mere mechanical labor ; for instance, after 
having written " ce divin enfant," he scratched it out and 
wrote "cet adorable enfant," which he again changed 
into "cet enfant adorable." The Archbishop of Bordeaux 
observed him once, and made some experiments to ascer- 
tain if he used his sight with his work. The sheet of paper 
which the sleeping man had placed before him was 
cautiously taken away and replaced by another. If this 
sheet was of different size or shape, the sleeper would 
notice the difference ; but if the paper was similar to the 
sheet which was taken away from him, he would not be- 
come aware of the change. An opaque screen was placed 
between his eyes and the paper, but he continued to write 
without impediment. A young student frequently arose 
in the middle of the night, lighted his lamp, and sat down 
and solved the most difficult problems of algebra and 
geometry, after which he would extinguish the light and 
return to bed. A banker in Amsterdam once requested a 
professor of mathematics to solve for him a very compli- 
cated problem of arithmetic. The professor entrusted 
the work to some of his pupils. One of them went to bed 
with his head full of the task, and was not a little astonished 
to find on the following morning his table covered with 
papers on which the calculation had been completely and 
satisfactorily worked out ; and, as the entire work was 
written in his own handwriting, it proved beyond all 
question that he himself had done the work during the. 
night in a sleeping and unconscious condition. 



394 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Weinholt gives an account of a young man who rose in 
his sleep during the night, sat down at the piano, selected 
a piece of music, and performed it with perfect correct- 
ness. On one occasion a friend of his turned the piece 
of music upside down; the somnambulist noticed this, 
and turned the sheet again the right way. On another 
occasion the sleeper found one of the strings very much 
out of tune ; he opened the instrument, tuned it, and con- 
tinued to play. 

In face of this often-proved fact — that the spirit is in 
full activity whilst the body is sleeping — nobody will deny 
that there is a power in man which can be active and alive 
without the use of the senses. And who will deny that 
this power, this spirit, when it is entirely free from the body, 
can produce even greater effects, considering that it is able 
to produce such extraordinary effects when it is tied to the 
body? 

Sleep has often been called the brother of death, and 
not altogether without cause ; for in sleep, as in death, the 
body is motionless and inactive whilst the spirit is at work. 
This activity of the spirit appears in the living man in the 
dream-life. Experience and careful study have taught us 
much about this psychical phenomenon. In a healthy 
and sound sleep we do not dream, or only on rare occasions. 
Dreams generally occur in an unsound or disturbed slumber. 
Many, indeed, by far the great majority of dreams, are 
mere hallucinations of the spirit, which have their origin 
in outward circumstances, such as overloading the stomach, 
and others. These disappear like phantoms, and have 
generally escaped our memory the following morning. 
But there are some dreams which only rarely occur, which 
may be considered as heralds of the future and of another 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 395 

life — prophetic dreams which are realized and can never 
be forgotten during our lifetime. Perthy says, in his 
11 Views:" "When the spirit is free of earthly fetters, 
loosened, as it were, from the body, and returns to its own 
divine sphere, then we dream the truth." 

Schubert and others who have written on the life of the 
soul and the spirit quote many such instances. We will 
repeat here a few of them. 

On the 8th of October, 1847, a caravan consisting of 
fourteen adults and a few children, under the leadership 
of Captain Conroy, left St. Joseph, in Missouri, on its 
way to California. In the beginning of March, 1848, the 
caravan lost its way in the snow-covered California Sierras. 
After having consumed all their provisions, nothing was 
left to the unfortunate people but death from starvation. 
A few days' journey from the spot where they had stopped 
for their last rest there lived Captain Don Jose Bluent, 
who one night had a distinct vision in his dream of these 
unfortunate travelers. The idea that this dream might 
have shown him a reality, and that he might be called 
upon to be the savior of the starving emigrants, prompted 
him on the following day to gather a dozen men and set 
out in search of them. 

On the 15th of March they reached the entrance of a 
snow-covered gap in the Sierras, and found a tree on which 
a sail-cloth was nailed, with the following inscription: 
"Take notice: Captain Conroy's emigrants have lost 
their way in the snow, and are encamped higher up in this 
gap. They are without provisicns, and are starving. 
Left St. Joseph October 8, 1847. L e ft. Salt Lake January 
1, 1848. Reached here March 1, 1848. We lost one-half 
of our animals near the Platte River, and on the 20th of 



396 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

February we were obliged to leave our wagons behind." 
Then followed the names of thirteen members of the 
caravan, the names of three children who had died on the 
road, and the name of an adult who had been lost on the 
3d of February. After a few days' ride Bluent's party 
reached the camp, and everything was found as Bluent had 
seen it in his dream, and as he had told it to his com- 
panions. A number of the unfortunate people had already 
died from starvation. The few still alive were fortunately 
saved. The Spanish Chronicle of California, where this 
incident is related, states distinctly that the saving party 
merely set out in consequence of Bluent's dream. 

There are many other accounts in existence of such 
prophetic dreams, and history relates them. Caesar's wife, 
Calphurnia, warned him not to go to the Senate on the 
15th of March of the year 44 before Jesus, because she 
had dreamed that his life would be in danger on that day. 
Csesar did not obey the warning, and was murdered by 
Brutus during the session of the Senate. 

Another historical dream is that of the Elector of 
Saxony, Frederick the Wise. On the morning of the 31st 
of October, 151 7, the day on which Luther nailed his 
Theses on the church-door of Wittenberg, he dreamt three 
successive times of a monk. The Elector himself 
wrote down his dream immediately after awaking: "I 
had fallen asleep in my bed, very tired, in the midst of 
saying a prayer. I awoke a few hours afterward, and lay 
awake, occupied with all sorts of thoughts, until after 
twelve o'clock. I prayed to God for grace that he would 
direct me and my Counsellors into the right path of govern- 
ment. I thought of the blessed saints, and prayed for the 
poor souls in purgatory. I fell asleep again, and I dreamt 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 397 

that the Almighty God sent to me a monk, with a fine 
and honest countenance, who was the natural son of St. 
Paul, the blessed Apostle. All the blessed saints were 
with him, at God's command, to testify that he had been 
sent by God, and who commanded me to allow the monk 
to write something on the door of my chapel in Wittenberg. 
I told my Chancellor to tell him, as God commanded it, 
and as he had such powerful testimony, that he might 
write what he had been ordered to write. And now the 
monk began to write in Wittenberg, in such large letters 
that I could perfectly recognize them here in Schweinitz. 
The pen with which the monk wrote was so long that its 
end reached as far as Rome. There was a lion there, and 
the pen pierced both its ears, and stretched farther, until it 
reached the crown of His Holiness the Pope, and touched 
it so rudely that it began to shake, and was going to fall 
from His Holiness's head. As it was going to fall, it 
seemed to me as if E. L. and I were not far distant, and 
I stretched forth my hand to save the crown from falling. 
And thereupon I awoke, and still had my arms stretched 
out, and felt quite frightened, and angry with the monk 
that he did not write in a more modest manner. And 
when I came to think, I knew that it was a dream ; but I 
was still full of sleep, and my eyes soon closed again. 
And when I was asleep, I dreamt again of the monk, and 
saw how he continued to write, and to stab the lion with 
his pen, and through the lion the Pope. And the lion 
roared so loudly that all the inhabitants of Rome and all 
the estates of the Holy Empire came to see what was the 
matter. Then the Pope desired that they should stop the 
monk and report to me what he was doing ; and thereupon 
I awoke again, and was astonished that the dream should 



398 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

return to me. But I was not afraid, and prayed to God 
that he would preserve His Holiness against all evil ; and 
I fell asleep for the third time. Then the monk came 
again, and we tried to get the Pope away, and to break 
the monk's pen ; but the more we tried to seize the pen, 
the stronger it became, and made a rattling noise, so that 
it hurt my ears ; and we all grew angry and weary, and, 
one after the other, left the place. And as I was now 
again in Wittenberg, I sent word to the monk to ask him 
where he got this pen which was so strong and firm. And 
he sent word to me that the quill came from an old 
Bohemian Goose, a hundred years old ;* and he said one 
of his schoolmasters had given it to him, and had asked 
him, as it was such a good one, to use it for his sake ; and 
he said that he had tempered it himself, and that it was so 
good and firm because you could not take away the spirit 
and the soul from it, as from other pens. And soon after- 
ward there came a loud noise, as if many other quills had 
grown out of the monk's quill; and it was a pleasure to 
see how eager everybody was for them. And I made up 
my mind that I would talk to the monk myself; and 
thereupon I awoke again. This is my dream. I think it 
is not without significance. And I made up my mind that 
I would tell it to my Father Confessor, but finally resolved 
that I would first tell it to E. L. and to my Chancellor, 
and hear their opinion about it." 

The world knows how this dream has been fulfilled. 

The phenomena of presentiment, far-sight or second- 
sight, give us as deep an insight into the life of the spirit 
as dreams. A great number of people have either ex- 

* Huss, 141 5. 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 399 

perienced these presentiments themselves, or have the 
testimony of nearest relations and friends in regard to 
them, which excludes all supposition of intentional deceit. 
The mere "I don't believe in it" means nothing. A 
scientific work which appeared some twenty years ago 
says, very modestly: "This is a phase of spiritual life 
upon which very little light has been thrown hitherto, and 
it is possible that intentional or unintentional deception 
has played some part in it. But many cases have been so 
firmly established, that only an exaggerated desire to 
doubt can dare to deny them. It is a task of latter times 
to lighten up this dark field with the light of scientific 
criticism, and to assign to these presentiments their proper 
place in the science of the soul-life of man." 

Presentiment, far-sight or second-sight, are those facul-, 
ties which dwell in certain persons, enabling them to fore- 
see, to forebode, certain distant or future events. The 
presentiments of these people generally concern objects, 
persons or events in which they have no particular interest, 
which are often entirely unknown to them. The phenome- 
non of presentiment prevails in almost every country; but 
the gift of second-sight is found principally among the 
inhabitants of Scotland, Westphalia, Switzerland, the 
Shetland Islands, the Faroe Islands, and Lapland. 

One of the most striking cases of this kind is the well- 
known foresight which Swedenborg had of the fire of 
Stockholm. Kant wrote about it to a friend as follows : 
"Toward the end of September, 1756, Swedenborg came 
on a Sunday afternoon, about four o'clock, to Gothenburg. 
He was received by a friend, who accompanied him to his 
house, where a little party had been arranged, to which 
fourteen people had been invited. In the midst of this 



400 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

cheerful company Swedenborg became suddenly silent, 
and his face had an expression of profound grief. It was 
about six o'clock in the afternoon. Swedenborg left the 
room, and returned in a few moments in a state of great 
terror and anguish. When he was asked what was the 
matter with him, he said that just at this moment a fire 
had broken out in Stockholm, near St. Mary's Church, 
and was spreading with terrible rapidity. He left the 
room repeatedly in a state of great excitement. Among 
other details, he told the company that the house of one 
of his friends, whose name he gave, had already been com- 
pletely destroyed, and that his own house was in great 
danger. About eight o'clock he exclaimed, in a tone of 
great joy : ' God be thanked ! The fire has been extin- 
guished, within only three houses of my own.' The 
Governor, who had heard of this incident, sent for 
Swedenborg on Monday morning. The latter gave to the 
Governor the most detailed description of the fire — the 
number of houses that had been destroyed, and also the 
time of the duration of the fire. On Monday evening a 
messenger arrived who had been sent by a Stockholm 
merchant to a business friend in Gothenburg ; and on the 
following morning a special courier was sent with a de- 
scription of the fire to the Governor. Both these men, 
in every detail, confirmed what Swedenborg had told the 
previous afternoon." 

Buchanan, in his "History of Scotland," gives an ac- 
count of another instance of second-sight having historical 
authority. James I. was murdered by Graham on the 20th 
of February, 1437. This deed was foreseen by a certain 
James Loudin, who at that time was lying sick in bed. It 
was about noon that he suddenly called to his family in an 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 401 

excited manner: "Quick! quick! Hasten to help the 
King ! He is already surrounded by the assassins who 
want to kill him! " A few minutes afterward he added: 
"Alas ! it is too late : our good Lord is dead." 

An instance of presentiment which occurred quite recently 
in London may finally be quoted here. The London 
Mercury states, in a number of September, 1882, that, a 
few days before, a well-dressed young man came in a state 
of great excitement to the editors' room, to ask if they 
had received any information of the names of those who 
had been killed in Alexandria. When he was told that 
no such details had yet been received, he said that the 
reason for his calling was that the mother and the wife of 
an officer of the name of Rivington, who was then stationed 
in Alexandria, had heard, toward evening of the previous 
day, the voice of the officer calling out in a plaintive tone, 
and three times in succession: "Mother!" On the 
following day the Admiralty informed the family of 
Captain Rivington that, at the same time they imagined 
they heard his voice, he had been shot in the streets of 
Alexandria. 

Nothing speaks more strongly for the unlimited activity 
of the spirit, and for its immortality, than these pure, 
sublime visions of the spirit which are manifested by fore- 
sight and the presentiment of future events, when man 
passes over all earthly impediments and his spiritual nature 
enjoys perfect freedom. 

The same is the case with somnambulism, or the so- 
called clairvoyance. We find traces of this phenomenon 
of spiritual life among the Indians, Egyptians and Greeks 
of ancient times. In the Middle Ages we find that 
Paracelsus, Kircher, and others, and afterward the English- 

26 



402 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

man, Foudde, have investigated this question. In modern 
times it was Mesmer, a Viennese physician, who first called 
public attention to the subject of clairvoyance, or animal 
magnetism, as this condition was named by him. 

One of , the most beautiful results of man's spiritual 
power is that richly endowed, wonderful clairvoyance, the 
germ which contains the precious fruit of assurance of a 
spiritual life. The spirit of a clairvoyant moves freely in 
a higher atmosphere, and proclaims things by means of 
his organ of speech, which is the only one still at his 
command ; thus proving that his spirit, independent of his 
body, moves in a region which has not been reached by 
human vision, and that he has acquired information which 
surpasses the horizon of human consciousness. Clairvoy- 
ance is one of those spiritual phenomena of which very 
little is known at present, which has often been misunder- 
stood and misrepresented, and altogether doubted. Inten- 
tional and unintentional deception may have played some 
part here, as in other cases ; but, in spite of such abuses 
and misunderstandings, the truth of this phenomenon has 
been irrefutably established by thousands of instances, and 
by the observations and reports of distinguished physicians. 
Clairvoyance is one of the most remarkable indications of 
the existence of a superior, super-sensual world. It is a 
condition in which the human spirit, although it has not 
been released from the fetters of earthly life, has been able 
to elevate itself above it, to enter into the domain of causes, 
and to communicate things to us which the physical eye 
cannot perceive. Thus it happens that the clairvoyant 
sees before him places, events, objects and incidents of 
every kind, although they may be thousands of miles dis- 
tant from him ; and he is able to describe them in the 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 403 

most minute manner. And, as a human body seems to be 
also transparent to his eye, he is enabled to indicate the 
location of certain diseases and accurately describe them. 
Many instances have happened in which clairvoyants have 
described diseases of persons whom they have never 
known or seen, and have given them appropriate pre- 
scriptions. It has also frequently occurred that they have 
announced the arrival of people whose approach they 
could neither see nor hear with their physical organ's, and 
that they have frequently read sealed letters which have 
been placed near their stomach or on their forehead. 

That the condition of clairvoyance is like to that at the 
approach of death is proved by the physical phenomena 
connected with it. All those which appear at the hour of 
death can be distinguished, to a certain degree, in the 
condition of clairvoyance. The body appears lifeless, the 
senses are apparently extinguished, voluntary movements 
cease, and breathing and the pulse, in the highest state of 
ecstasy, are scarcely perceptible. This deathlike, mag- 
netic sleep is followed by an awakening which appears to 
be more like that which will follow death, than that which 
occurs after ordinary sleep. The face of the clairvoyant 
becomes suddenly animated; the eyes are firmly closed; 
but an inward life is revealed which changes the expression 
of pain, or of indifferent repose, into that of ecstasy and 
complete consciousness. Such an expression is very much 
like that which, at the moment of intense enthusiasm, 
animates the face of a man, or that which sometimes 
glorifies the face of the dying at the last moment. 

All these phenomena, and each one in itself, furnish 
the proof that our belief in immortality and our hope for 
it are based upon a firm foundation. 



404 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

If I do not here mention spiritualism as one of the 
phases of spiritual life, it is because I do not wish to write 
positively on any subject about which I have gained no 
absolute certainty, and to this conviction I have not ar- 
rived in the case of spiritualism. But this movement has 
effected one good result. In 1856, the followers of this 
doctrine in the United States were estimated at two and a 
half millions; in i860, at four millions; and Judge 
Edmonds, a well-known and zealous spiritualist, published, 
June 12th, 1867, in the Bannei of Light, a letter in which 
he estimates their number at from ten to eleven millions. 
The authority of such a man, of undoubted integrity, 
should be received without reserve. This is a satisfactory 
proof how deeply the belief in immortality rests in the 
heart of man, for it is exactly this belief which has called 
into life the movement of spiritualism. 

Man consists of spirit, soul and body. The spirit, as 
the principle of the super-sensual, is distinct from the 
bodily, sensual nature — that is to say, from the body, and 
the soul which we imagine gives life to the body. The 
spirit is that imperishable power which is only temporarily 
united with the body, which is manifested in imagination 
and in the struggles of thought and will ; whilst the soul, 
supported by and dependent on the sensual organs, regu- 
lates our feeling. Many animals have a soul in common 
with man, as we may assume with certainty when we con- 
sider their instinct and intelligence. The difference be- 
tween an animal's soul and the human soul is this — that 
man possesses the spirit by the side of the soul, but that 
the animal is purely material, and devoid of spiritual 
power and faculty, and, for that reason, can have no idea 
of God. 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 405 

A modern writer expresses himself as follows on this 
subject: "Man, with his infinitely varying relations and 
positions, with his natural — we might say animal — instinct, 
experiences an extraordinary, active soul-life, which ani- 
mates his heart with a thousand different feelings of good 
and evil, love and hatred, pride, vanity, ambition, and 
innumerable hopes and desires. All these are directed to 
one aim — the satisfaction of desires which give peace to 
the heart, which make life more comfortable, more 
cheerful, more agreeable, or to those which satisfy 
our passions. These are the manifestations of the 
soul, of that power of life the aspirations of which do 
not rise beyond the life and well-being of the body, 
and which, therefore, are almost invariably in harmony 
with the body, and find contentment in satisfying its 
demands. 

"How different are the manifestations of the spirit, this 
power which we might call, by way of illustration, the 
organ of intelligence ! How often is it opposed to the 
aspirations of the soul, which frequently aims at the satis- 
faction of sensual desires only ! We hear its threatening 
voice ; it forces us to resign enjoyments which we have 
ardently desired, or it punishes with bitter repentance the 
satisfaction of unholy desires. The mobt depraved soul 
has suddenly come to the knowledge of its unrighteous- 
ness by one flash of lightning from the spirit. And if the 
spirit of man is only the seed of a higher spiritual being 
after death, it is strong and powerful enough to admonish 
us to return, and to bring us to the consciousness that all 
desires, the satisfaction of all the wishes of the soul, can- 
not give contentment and peace unless the voice of the 
spirit, our reason, is also satisfied. 



406 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

"Thus we see three entirely distinct, vital activities 
within us. One of these prevails in the vegetable king- 
dom, the other in the animal kingdom, both of which live 
only for, and aspire to, material things. The third is 
manifested in an entirely different tendency : it strives to 
free itself from materialism; it is opposed to it, and 
originates in a strange and unknown dominion. Its hopes 
and aspirations go beyond visible existence ; it seems to 
be a stranger in this world of matter, and points toward a 
higher destiny." 

Even here on earth our spirit, while it is dwelling in 
our body, enables us to remove ourselves in one moment 
to the most distant regions and places. When we are far 
away from home, does not our spirit carry our thoughts 
thither? We visit every place that has been dear to us; 
we speak to our distant friends without being seen or 
heard by them. And it carries us into the immeasurable 
universe, far above, where millions of worlds travel on 
their course. Truly, our spirit belongs to the universe, 
not to the earth, this little atom of sphere. 

Our spirit is immortal, but not our soul. 

In our soul, as has been said above, there dwell not 
only love, kindness, faith and all other good qualities, but 
also the evil ones — anger, hatred, malice, revenge and 
cunning. Now, if the soul were immortal, then our evil 
qualities would be immortal also. Is such an idea possible? 
The activity of the soul is dependent on the sensual organs, 
and, as these organs die with the body, the soul also must 
lose its activity with them, and cannot be immortal. It 
is different with the spirit, which does not depend upon 
the organs of the body ; for a man may be deprived of the 
use of every one of his senses, yet he will be able to think 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 407 

— that is to say, be spiritually active. That man is able to 
think when every sensual function has ceased, even that of 
movement and feeling, has been proved by innumerable 
cases of apparent death — where people with their eyes 
closed have been lying in their coffins, perfectly under- 
standing everything going on around them, and looking 
with terror upon the prospect of being buried alive, with- 
out the power to give the least sign of life. 

Christianity bases the belief of immortality upon the 
dogma of the resurrection of Jesus; but if this dogma, as 
is really the case, proves to be contrary to all laws of nature, 
what becomes of the Christian belief in immortality? We 
come to an entirely different result if we disregard all 
miracles, and all that is opposed to natural laws, and look 
for the causes of our belief in immortality in the phenome- 
na which manifest themselves in observation of the activity 
of the spirit. Christianity teaches that, on the last day of 
judgment, all who have ever lived upon earth shall arise 
again from their graves and receive judgment. Is it 
possible to believe that the bodies of men who have been 
dead for thousands of years, and which have decayed 
under ground, and have become dust and ashes, and have 
passed into other forms, and have served as food for the 
living — is it possible, we say, to imagine that they can 
come to life again? And can we represent to ourselves — 
supposing that the earth, as the Bible teaches, has existed 
five thousand years only — that five thousand times as many 
people as are existing now can find room on earth? 

Christianity teaches us, also, that those who have led 
a righteous life will be rewarded in the world to come, 
while those who have done evil will be punished. How 
does this agree with our idea of the justice and love of the 



408 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Supreme Being — that those who have done wrong on this 
earth, where they have been surrounded by earthly tempta- 
tions, should be punished in eternity? No other creed 
contains such a terrible and cruel doctrine as the Christian 
dogma of eternal punishment. 

And if we seek for the Christian heaven, where the 
righteous are rewarded, and the Christian hell, where the 
wicked are punished, where shall we find them ? Nowhere. 
We do not find in heathen mythology the idea of hell, but 
the myth of a heaven. Like very many other ideas of 
Christianity, that of the dwelling-place of the righteous has 
its origin in heathen traditions. Greek mythology tells us 
that Jupiter had his throne above the heavenly vault, where he 
and the other inhabitants of heaven occupied magnificent 
castles and palaces, whence they could overlook the entire 
earth. This abode of the gods was called, among the 
Greeks, Olympus. We no longer believe that the Supreme 
Being, like an earthly prince, sits upon a throne, and that 
his throne is somewhere beyond the clouds. The belief 
in hell is pretty well overcome in our days; and even 
Christian clergymen begin to preach against this doctrine. 
The belief in heaven, the contrast of hell, must naturally 
end with the belief in hell. Heaven and hell are the in- 
ventions of former times, which had no understanding of 
what was within and beyond them. 

If Christianity teaches us that we shall be rewarded in 
a future world for the good that we have done here, and 
be punished for the evil we have committed, it only excites 
our selfishness. We should do good, not in hope of reward, 
but because it is right to do so; we should avoid evil, not 
out of fear of punishment, but because it is wrong to do 
evil. He who believes in immortality should not connect 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 409 

it with future reward or punishment, as the Christian 
Church teaches it. Our task upon earth is to do good, to 
fulfill our duties toward our fellow-creatures, not for the 
sake of heavenly or earthly advantages. Man will find 
reward and punishment for his actions here upon earth, in 
his own conscience. This inner judge speaks, although 
sometimes late, so clearly and distinctly that his voice 
cannot be stifled either by wild dissipation or by skepti- 
cism or sophistry, but only by earnest, honest repentance. 
But he who has tried honestly to do his duty, and to do 
right, finds a supreme reward in his peace of mind. He 
who desires particular reward for virtue and righteousness, 
has already lost this assumed privilege, for virtue does not 
desire reward. 

The bridge which leads us from this earthly life to a 
higher one is the death of our body. Let us observe, 
briefly, the last moment which brings our earthly life to a 
close. 

Strictly speaking, man does not live once, but he has a 
threefold existence. The first is that of continued sleep; 
the second, a change from sleeping to waking; the last, a 
continued consciousness. The first is that which he leads 
unconsciously in his mother's womb; the second is his life 
upon earth, where his spirit is developed and prepared for 
greater perfection ; the third, after the spirit has left the 
body, is purely spiritual. The transition from the uncon- 
scious to the conscious life is called birth; the end of our 
life on earth is called death, whilst in reality it is only a 
birth — the birth of a new existence of perfection. 

Plato says, in his "Phaedon:" "He who is truly de- 
voted to love a d wisdom will use his life to make himself 
familiar with death, will learn how to die." 



410 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Wieland says, in his " Euthanasia: " "The conscious- 
ness that we have never desired to do wrong, but always 
wished to do good, and have done good to the best of 
our ability, gives a condition of peace and repose to our 
last hours which I consider as the beginning of that blissful 
state which religion promises. He who is conscious of 
good at such a moment, trusts that all nature is good, and 
looks forward to the future without fear and anxiety, 
whatever may happen. Such a soul clings like a child to 
the mother's breast, with a feeling of perfect safety in the 
Infinite, and passes unconsciously from a life to which it 
will never wake again. 

"And when our last moment approaches, and we might 
desire to remain and work a little longer here, we should 
humbly bow down and say: 'Not as I will, Eternal Love, 
but as thou wilt;' and we should rely upon the divine 
thought that death is the crown of earthly life and the 
golden gate of spiritual life." 

He who has watched by the bedside of dying people 
will know that, with few exceptions, the transition from 
this into a future life contains nothing terrible. There 
is no feeling of horror or anxiety to disturb the last 
hours of the righteous; on the contrary, we have many 
proofs that, as life disappears, serenity and a feeling of 
delightful ease and freedom will come over the face of the 
dying; and we frequently find in the features after death 
an expression of the bliss of the last moment. Experience 
has taught us that dying people have often seen objects 
which cannot be described with our limited speech. They 
hear heavenly melodies, and their spiritual powers are 
heightened to such a degree that they give expression, 
with the most intense feeling, as if inspired, to the visions 



THE LPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 411 

which they see, and endow them with rich colors and 
gorgeous flowers of speech. The dying words of celebrated 
men show that death has no terror. Schiller's last words 
were: "I begin to see clearly in many things." Lord 
Collingwood, who died at sea during a violent storm, re- 
plied to a friend who asked him whether the rocking of 
the ship disturbed him: "Oh no, oh no; nothing can 
disturb me, for I am dying; and it will be a comfort to 
you, and to all those whom I love, to know how easily I 
die." The last words of Hunter, the celebrated English 
surgeon, were these : " If I only had a pen to write down 
how easy and comfortable it is to die!" There is some- 
thing sublime in the death of the righteous. 

On tombs we frequently see death represented as a 
hideous skeleton with a grinning countenance. That is a 
false and contradictory representation of death, and is 
likely to fill men with a horror of the last moment. You 
should rather represent him as a smiling angel who carries 
the spirit into the abode of immortality. That would be 
a true and lovely picture of the last moment. We also 
often find death represented as an angel with an upturned 
torch which is about to expire; it would be better to repre- 
sent him as an angel upholding a flaming torch, as a true 
symbol of our awaking to a higher existence. On a tomb- 
stone in one of the churchyards of London there is the in- 
scription : ' ' The angel of death is the angel of eternal life. ' ' 

Others will follow us after we are dead. The hearts of 
those who are now decaying in the churchyards once beat 
with joy and pain — happy and cheerful, sad and tormented 
hearts of men. And in a hundred years the plow goes 
over their graves, making its furrows and preparing the 
fields for the sower, and for the seed which produces food 



412 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

for the living generation. Happy and cheerful men move 
over the ground under which the remains of their fore- 
fathers decay and fall to dust — coming and going, appear- 
ing and disappearing. The immortal spirit alone remains 
forever. 

But how can we mortals represent to ourselves immor- 
tality? Scientists and naturalists presume that thousands 
and thousands of years ago a certain order of things must 
have existed; but their conclusions have not been proved: 
they are only conclusions derived from what they actually 
see. Why should we not speculate upon the future from 
that which we feel and know at present? If scientists are 
at liberty to derive their theories from nature relating to 
the past, why should we not draw from present nature our 
theories relating to the future? The belief in God began 
to express itself by rude emblems, until it became gradually 
developed to a more spiritual view. The belief in immor- 
tality appears at first in ideas which are mixed up with our 
earthly life. We find it first in the idea of transmigration 
of souls between men and animals; then in the resurrection 
of the body, and finally in the continuation of life either in 
heaven or in hell, where joys or torments were represented 
in the same manner as they are felt by human beings. It 
was not until later times that the idea of immortality was 
developed in man into a more sublime representation — a 
purified existence, a spiritual continuation, after we have 
freed ourselves of all that is imperfect, of all that is con- 
nected with our earthly existence. 

There is a prevailing idea among men that after they 
have left this earth they will find in the other world their 
friends who have departed before them, and will be re- 
ceived by them with open arms. It cannot be denied 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 413 

that this idea is based upon the sacred feeling of love for 
those who have gone before us — an idea so beautiful and 
so poetical that it might be called an apotheosis of love; 
yet we must confess that this beautiful feeling carries within 
it a strong mixture of earthly selfishness. The belief in a 
continuation of our personal life and of a Christian heaven 
is inseparable from this view. It cannot be possible as 
soon as we have come to the conviction that our future 
life is a purely spiritual one, and that the idea of a Christian 
heaven is based on error. 

But a superior, an infinitely more elevated conception 
of our spiritual existence is that of an entirely ////personal 
future life. We cannot imagine that, among the millions 
of heavenly bodies, our little earth, a mere atom in the 
universe, is alone inhabited by thinking beings. That 
would make our earth the centre of the universe — an idea 
which must be rejected as childish folly. But if we cannot 
doubt that there are heavenly bodies of superior condition 
to our own, it is necessary to come to the conclusion that 
they are inhabited by superior beings, according to the 
divine law of perpetual development. 

The most perfect of beings which we can perceive with 
our senses is man. We cannot imagine anything that is 
above us; but we can imagine that superior and more 
perfect beings may exist — beings endowed with higher and 
more acute senses than those possessed by us in our bodies; 
beings of higher intellect and mind, who are able to com- 
prehend better the wonders of existence, the wisdom and 
greatness of the Supreme Being, the connection of eternal 
truths and the blissfulness of life; better than we, who 
catch only a glimpse of the future, whilst the past is almost 
immediately lost in the ocean of oblivion. 



414 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Look at the millions of stars which crowd the heavens 
on a midsummer night, and which are figuratively called 
the dwellings of heaven. Are these not the abodes of those 
who once lived upon this earth, and who are now living a 
more spiritual and perfect life? 

If we looked up to those stars, into those immeasurable 
distances, with devotion, to those lights which cheerfully 
brighten our earthly life, we would say to ourselves: Be 
of good cheer, believe and hope, for there are other worlds 
and other beings superior to those living on this little 
earth. There are other wonders of existence than those 
which you perceive to-day; other beings than you little 
men who call yourselves the lords of creation. 

Kant said that it was unreasonable to believe that this 
little atom of an earth was the only one inhabited by 
reasonable beings. Laplace, the astronomer, says that it 
is unreasonable to suppose that the life-bearing matter on 
such a planet as Jupiter could be without fruit. Herschel 
thought it was not in accordance with science to imagine 
that man was the final aim of creation, and that the other 
bodies contained no other abodes for beings of a different 
kind. The greatest thinkers and scientists of all times 
have cherished the idea that, in those innumerable worlds 
which are shown to our eyes, order and law, life and feel- 
ing, must prevail. And if science, which is always striving 
after truth, recognizes this idea, should we not console our- 
selves over the loss of the Christian heaven? 

It is a beautiful and true saying, "In my Father's house 
are many mansions;" and the transmigration of spirits 
from one star to another, from the good to the better, 
from the better to the best, is no improbable idea in 
a world where mortal man, tormented by errors, is per- 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN AND IMMORTALITY. 415 

mitted to discover the supreme laws of nature; to dis- 
cover worlds from the harmony which reigns throughout 
the universe. 

If there are thinking beings in other worlds, then the 
idea is reasonable that the spirits of the universe must 
have a common center in the Great Spirit whom we 
worship as God. And immortality, in which we believe, 
is a development from step to step, until our spirit has 
reached perfection and becomes one with this Supreme 
Being. 

We will cling to this joyful hope, this faith, this blissful 
conception of the sublime idea of immortality. And we 
shall carry this comforting thought with us — that our 
earthly life was not in vain, and that what our Spirit 
created here is not perishable ; that the seed which we have 
sown here will not die, but live and bear fruit for generations 
to come. 

"From Death arises still more precious Life!" 

So says the poet; and his lofty word 

Is true and strong as is the word of God. 

It finds an easy door to every heart, 

And breathes of immortality to man. 

With this conception, man cannot believe 

That, though his mortal frame to ruin fall, 

His spirit too will vanish into naught, 

In dark annihilation lost and gone. 

So man, nature and science join to teach 
That nothing vanishes which once had birth. 
The form may change: the inner being lives; 
The germ, the living force, must still survive. 
And, as man's mortal frame doth change and pass, 
But never vanishes, so does his spirit 
But pass, and not expire. 



416 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

For, since no thing can perish in its germ, 
Man's spirit cannot die. It still must live. 
Eternal life is his. The sun may fade, 
And hoary Time may totter with his years; 
Still, fresh and fair, man's life of life remains. 
The stars will pass away, but in man's soul 
The star of immortality will shine 
From life to life, a luminous intelligence, 
Forever and forever. 



Pertaining to Morality. 



I inscribe the following pages with the words, "Pertain- 
ing to Morality/' in order to indicate that it is not my in- 
tention to give a complete description of a system of 
•morality, but merely to give the reader my views and ex- 
periences, which have been gathered during the many 
years of my long life, during a close observation of the 
lives of individuals, families and nations. 

What is the meaning of morality of life? It is religion 
carried into practical life — the theory of belief carried into 
execution in our actions and deeds, and applied to further 
the welfare of ourselves and our fellow-creatures. Virtuous 
actions are entirely independent of ecclesiastical dogmas; 
and as there is only one sun which shines for all life upon 
earth, there can be only one system of morality which 
applies to all nations that have been reached by civilization, 
no matter how much they may differ from each other in 
language, opinions, education, laws or customs. Human 
nature is everywhere the same, as is also our conscience, 
which judges our actions. Moral freedom, which is the 
gift of man alone, is that vital distinction which elevates 
him above all other beings. The animal follows blindly 
its instinct, and cannot escape from its influence and 
power; but man possesses freedom of will: he can and 
must deliberate before he acts; he must fight against his 
evil, sensual inclinations; he must follow the commands 
of his reason and conscience. He who obeys these laws 
leads a moral life. 

27 (417) 



418 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Every being is subject to the temptations of his senses; 
and he must watch them carefully, that they may not be- 
come a torment to his conscience. If reason and conscience 
are victorious in the struggle with sensuality, virtue is the 
result of their victory. For this reason, a man who is not 
possessed of strong sensual inclinations or passions, and 
who leads a regulated and moral life, cannot be called a 
virtuous man as much as he who is less fortunately consti- 
tuted, but who has won the victory over his sensuality and 
passion. 

We possess certain inclinations which are, in many 
instances, based upon our physical condition, which, by 
education, example and surroundings in our childhood 
and youth, may be developed for good or for evil. If these 
physical conditions, education and surroundings are favor- 
able to lead us to virtue, we are less exposed to temptation 
than others in whom these favorable conditions do not 
prevail. But we should never consider a man belonging 
to the first-named category as an example of virtue and 
morality, nor condemn and treat with cruel contempt the 
other. He who is fortunate enough to possess these favor- 
able physical and intellectual gifts, and has enjoyed the 
privilege of a good education and example, may indeed be 
praised as happy. 

Every man should make it a duty to keep a bridle on 
his inclinations and passions. He who becomes their toy 
falls from.one extreme and exalted condition into another. 
But this state of mind devours us, consumes our inner life, 
and robs us of the peace of mind, cheerfulness and con- 
tentment which are absolutely necessary to a happy life. 

We should always do our best to subdue the lower in- 
clinations of our nature to the more spiritual ones, and 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 419 

thus become more conscious of the pure and perfect image 
of moral individuality. In other words, we should always 
strive to become better. 

He who honestly strives to obtain contentment and true 
happiness will not seek them in sensual pleasures, in dissi- 
pation and wild passions, but in a cheerful, gratifying 
spiritual life. This alone can enable us to do our duty, to 
apply ourselves to our business, to enjoy social life, not to 
be weary in doing good, to tolerate the faults of others, to 
bear misfortune quietly and with courage, and to be 
moderate in the enjoyment of the pleasures of this life. 
The life of a good man is a struggle, a continual struggle, 
between duty and pleasure, and also between conflicting 
duties. A degraded man no longer attempts to fight; but 
even the good is sometimes conquered. Therefore, con- 
tinual watchfulness is required; for even th: slightest re- 
laxation will lead us farther from the right path than we at 
first imagine. 

"Why have I done what I ought not to have done, and 
what I did not want to do? What is the cause of this in- 
clination and that taste being too powerful within me? 
How can I fight against them and counterbalance them?" 
These are the questions which a man, under such circum- 
stances, generally puts to himself. And a man who takes 
counsel with himself in this serious and conscientious 
manner will not fail to receive a satisfactory reply. He 
will take new courage; and thus the fault which he has 
committed may lead him even to reach a higher standard 
of morality, and to obtain true happiness. 

It should be the care of every moment of our life to act 
righteously. That is our own interest, as well as that of 
the community ; for the actions of the individual, even of 



420 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

the most degraded and insignificant, reflect upon others 
and become a model for others. We need not detail here 
how quickly and injuriously evil examples act upon others 
— how they lead the weak away from the right path. 
Man is generally weakest where he thinks himself strongest. 
He who flees temptation is the true hero, rot he who 
consciously throws himself into its way, to gain the garland 
of virtue before he has begun the fight. 

Virtue does not require reward; it cannot be bought 
and it cannot be paid; it expects no remuneration; it 
finds its reward in the consciousness of doing right and 
of fulfilling its duty. And he who finds good in this, will 
also find encouragement for doing more; he who en- 
deavors faithfully to follow the dictates of his conscience, 
feels an increase of desire and power to become a still 
better man. 

Our conscience is the mother and our freedom the father 
of virtue. Where virtue dwells, happiness abides also ; 
but misery and physical poverty reign where virtue has no 
home. 

In order to lead a righteous life, we must have firmly 
established principles and an energetic character. Unfor- 
tunately, the majority of men have no convictions or 
principles, but only opinions; and this is why many pass 
through their lives helpless and purposeless. They are 
moved to and fro, and in every direction, like a slender 
reed when touched by the breath of the wind ; they exist 
without consulting their reason and their conscience. 
Weakness of character and absence of principles cause as 
much mischief in the world as actual depravity. It is the 
duty of a man of character not only to avoid all wrong 
and evil, but to prevent it in others, and impress them 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 421 

with the dignity and earnestness of justice and virtue. He 
who tolerates wrong encourages it. Men of character are 
the gold, men without character the mean, and often the 
counterfeit, coin of humanity. 

Many men excuse themselves by saying that they have 
been compelled to do wrong; but compulsion is a word 
that should not be found in the vocabulary of a man. No 
true man can be compelled to do anything which goes 
against his conscience and his wish. 



Love and marriage. — What happiness, what blissfulness, 
lie m these two words ! Love is a flower which blossoms 
in every clime, which neither the ice of the north nor the 
tropical sun can kill. At all times love has inspired poets 
with their most beautiful songs, and long after we have 
been forgotten hymns of love will resound — as long as man 
lives upon earth. 

But what misery lies also in these two words! How 
many marriages have been concluded without the right 
basis, without genuine, true and mutual love ! It frequently 
happens that marriage is concluded after a superficial, 
short acquaintance, in a moment of rising passion or 
sensuality; and, particularly in this country, it happens 
that young people who have scarcely passed the age of 
childhood have entered into the contract of marriage 
without consulting their parents, or in defiance of their 
objection, as if parents had no concern in the welfare of 
their children. The wrong which children commit by 
such an action is only too frequently avenged by subse- 
quent unfortunate marriages. The blessing of the parents, . 
or a warning word of their love, would have prevented 
such a misfortune. 



423 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

We often hear the expression from thoughless people 
that marriage is nothing but a civil contract. This is cer- 
tainly the case in all civilized countries ; but this contract 
is not less holy than that which has been sanctioned by 
the Church. The State has an interest in, and the right 
to protect, the purity of marriage, and to issue laws for 
that purpose. But the mere fulfillment of these laws, 
when the officer of the law has declared the young man 
and the young woman to be man and wife, does not really 
complete the act of marriage. Matrimony is the basis of 
morality, and its celebration does not end with the wedding- 
day: it must be of perpetual duration, a feast of souls as 
long as husband and wife live. But not only the State of 
which we are the citizens has an interest in marriage, but 
all humanity ; for every new marriage ought to be a sanctu- 
ary of domestic happiness, in which the song of songs, of 
love, is chanted. 

Such a marriage will be a happy one; husband and wife 
will meet in their wishes and desires; and, when wisdom 
decides and love yields, there can be no contention. A 
woman who loves her husband will at all times try to follow 
his just and reasonable wishes; and a man who loves his 
wife will not consider her as his inferior or as his superior. 
He will honor and protect her, guide her, and respect her 
feelings. Every heart longs for this holy, protecting love 
which never wavers in all changes of life, but is strength- 
ened as years go on, and remains the same in sickness and 
in health, in youth and in age, in good and bad fortune. 

A woman should choose only such a husband as will be 
to her a loving friend, counselor, protector and guide. 
Her love should not be sold for gold and splendor; nor 
should she care for personal beauty. All these are perish- 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 423 

able, and will be found wanting in the hour of trial, which 
is sure to come. Purity of heart, nobility of soul, and 
constancy, should be the basis of her affection. And the 
man, in the choice of his wife, should be actuated only by 
the purest motives, excluding all selfishness. Only the 
affinity of the two souls should give the decision. It is a 
wonderful, sublime and holy law of nature which attracts 
two beings to each other, so that by this union new beings 
may be created. Yes, thou art holy, for thou hast been 
chosen to fulfill a high and sublime duty — the continuation 
of the work which that power penetrating and vivifying 
the universe, God's love, began on earth in times past, far 
beyond all human memory. This mighty sexual desire 
penetrates the entire living world, from the little insect 
upon the blade of grass up to man. Thou art the herald 
of a self-conscious, divine will, which is manifested in the 
creation of every form of life and in the propagation of 
it. This desire has an indisputable right : wherever the 
present life decays and dies a new generation must arise. 
The enjoyment and the work of life should always fill our 
earth. Sexual love and the law of sexual connection are 
as holy as the institution of any natural law ; but if you 
allow this desire to become predominant, if you place it 
above intellect and conscience, you will sink lower and 
lower and lose all manly dignity. 

An animal is an animal, and is not intended for higher 
purposes. The sexual instinct reigns within it with full 
force, yet only at certain periods; therefore it is not un- 
limited. With the exception of the regular period of pair- 
ing, this instinct is dormant in the brute creation. There 
are also limits placed to man's desire — intellect and 
chastity. They are given to him as a warning, when this 



424 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

desire awakens in him, that he may not sink to the level 
of a beast. Chastity must accompany a man into his 
married life, so that it may be worthy of human beings. 
Whichever of the two loses chastity, loses also the respect 
of the other. But respect is the foundation of marriage 
as well as of love, and, without respect and esteem, love 
cannot be lasting; they must walk hand in hand. Neither 
man nor woman should for one moment forget the mutual 
respect which they owe each other. They should not for- 
get that each one has a claim upon the other's esteem, and 
if this is not asserted, the one cannot wonder at the loss of 
the love and esteem of the other. 

Uhlich has said the following excellent words in one of 
his writings: "Man, with his superior physical power, 
possesses, naturally, a stronger desire for the activity of 
life; the woman's constitution is more suitable for the 
quieter work in a narrower circle. Man feels more in- 
clined to judge circumstances and conditions with his 
reason ; woman with her feelings. These are not contrasts 
which exclude one another. Intellect and feeling are 
human gifts ; activity, in a narrow as well as a wider circle, 
is human vocation. In distinguishing the two sexes we 
can only speak of the preponderance of the one over the 
other; and it is a great blessing of well-regulated marriages 
when such a beautiful exchange takes place. It will do 
good to a man when his reason is modified by the womai.'s 
feeling; and likewise will it be well for the woman if her 
sentiments receive clearness and modification by the 
assistance of the man. 

"Man shall gather, and woman shall preserve. Man 
shall enter into the struggle of life ; woman shall quietly 
work and govern at home. When the husband's heart is 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 425 

heavy with bitterness and sorrow on account of worldly 
affairs, he shall find a resting-place on the faithful bosom 
of his wife; and when the woman feels depressed by her 
little cares, she shall cling to the strong man. Man shall 
work for justice and truth ; woman shall nurture the beauti- 
ful ; and she can do this, even under the most humble con- 
ditions, by observing in her household decency and good 
manners, order and cleanliness. At all times husband and 
wife should be in the most intimate connection, inwardly 
and outwardly. Thus they will always feel joined to each 
other more closely; they will oblige each other more than 
ever; they will improve each other, and their marriage 
will be a blessing. 

"The children which are born to them will fasten the 
bond still more closely. They will inspire them with new 
strength to perform those duties which their bond has 
already imposed upon them. To gain, and to preserve, 
and to keep in order, to strive after righteousness, to avoid 
evil, to agree upon that which is good, becomes now their 
increased duty. Care and anxiety have increased with 
this duty, and joy and pleasures also. It is one of the 
most blissful feelings of which the human heart is capable 
when, for the first time, the mother puts her new-born 
child to her breast; when the father lifts it up, and the 
thought fills his heart, ' This is my child.' The idea that 
dear human creatures are gathered round father and mother, 
from whom they have to learn how to become good and 
virtuous, will be an increased impulse for the two to live 
in perfect harmony and confidence with each other, to 
exchange their thoughts, to cling to each other in everything 
that is good and just, pure and noble. In such families 
there reigns a gentle, simple, pure, sweet joy; there is 



426 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

comfort from the vexations of the world, and, at the same 
time, they are the source from which flow the welfare of 
communities and the prosperity of nations, which join 
finally as a beautiful river. A well-conducted family is 
the best preparation for every larger communion." 

In order to lead a perfectly happy married life, both 
parties must be animated with the most earnest desire to 
make each other happy ; then alone they can and will be 
happy. Young married people should not forget that, 
however good and honorable they may be, neither of them 
is without weakness and faults; and it should be their most 
earnest desire to avoid them. No happy marriage can exist 
without this earnest desire. A soulful look, a brief word, 
suffice to awaken love; but we must strive to preserve it. 
Not a day nor an hour goes by without opportunities to 
deserve love. With thousands of little trifles a man can 
prove to his wife how much he cares for her; and she, on 
the other hand, can make her home so happy that he feels 
comfortable only there. 

Neither of them should impose restrictions upon the 
other, but should respect each other's personal liberty. 
There are many husbands who continually find fault with 
their wives, and give orders and make demands which 
assume a character of patronage ; and women are likely to 
fall into the same error. Nothing is more likely to disturb 
their peace than such conduct. 

Passion and a violent temper are only too frequently the 
source of unhappiness between hnsband and wife. But 
we have the power within us to master our temper; and 
nowhere should this duty be more strictly observed than 
between husband and wife. People of violent temper set 
a bad example to their children ; and the consequence has 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 427 

been that the children have also grown up subject to pas- 
sion and violence. Children of such unions, who see 
hatred and contention where love and harmony should 
reign, suffer from the evil consequences of such bad ex- 
amples, which have an evil effect upon them in every way; 
for it is the natural and unconquerable desire of children 
to follow the example of their parents. 

Married people should never forget that family life is a 
sacred institution which is intended to contribute to the 
improvement of mankind ; on the other hand, the degrada- 
tion of family life undermines the very foundation of society 
and of humanity. 

For some years past an agitation has been set on foot to 
work for what is called the emancipation of women. The 
promoters of this movement maintain that the position 
which women occupy to-day is undignified and subordinate. 
They demand that this alleged evil be remedied by grant- 
ing to women all political and social rights and privileges 
which hitherto have belonged to man alone. 

This would be no improvement or elevation of the con- 
dition of women, but rather a degradation. It is the duty 
of the woman to preserve the sanctity and dignity of the 
household and the family; and she should be protected 
against anything that is likely to bring her into contact 
with that which is not perfectly pure, with that which is 
rude and brutal. Public life belongs to man ; the woman's 
blissful activity should be confined to the sanctity of the 
household, to the education of the rising generation. 

God has evidently made woman to be the fixed point in 
the continual motion of the world ; and woe be to the 
nation which makes her the moving element! It will 
always be tossed about on the waves of life like a ship with- 



428 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

out rudder or anchor, and will never reach the longed-for 
harbor. 

Another party has arisen of late years which is in favor 
of total suspension of marriage, the so-called -party 01 
"Free Love.'' According to the teachings of this party, 
marriages are to be dissolved as soon as mutual affection 
and love have ceased to exist. But, in the eyes of these 
people, what is the meaning of the word love ? Certainly 
not that sublime feeling which unites two human hearts, 
but only a vulgar and entirely sensual sentiment, which 
degrades such a union to the level of prostitution. But, 
by such flagrant abuse between the sexes, the great moral 
institution of marriage would be annihilated ; there would 
be no more actual marriages, and no more families. In 
the history of mankind there are not wanting warning ex- 
amples which show how low a nation must invariably fall 
which ruthlessly destroys the sacred bonds of family life. 
In olden times, as well as in our own, the demoralization 
of society has destroyed as many states as have been ruined 
by the sword of the conqueror and the blast of war. 
Marriage and the family will remain for all time the founda- 
tion of the social virtues of a nation. 

Melendez Valdez de Mendieta, a Spaniard, and a high 
officer of justice in 1798, expressed himself as follows: 
"A terrible instance of selfishness : Forgetfulness of the 
most serious duties, contempt of the most sacred obliga- 
tions which the bonds of matrimony impose upon us, 
threaten a revolution and the dissolution of society. The in- 
clination to celibacy has become a habit, and encourages 
adultery among women. Our perverse mind makes us 
more and more indifferent toward an institution which is 
the foundation of all social order. The young men pretend 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 429 

that they cannot afford to support a wi fe — a shallow excuse, 
which is only supported by the increase of luxury and 
dissipation, and which only deprives many of the holiest 
and sweetest comfort which upholds man in his struggles 
on the thorny path of this life." 

How true, and how applicable to our own time, are these 
words, spoken a hundred years ago ! 

Let us once more return to the consummation of marriage. 
How many unhappy marriages have been contracted in 
the most reckless manner! Man and wife live together 
for a short time, until the intoxication of passion hag 
passed by ; and with this intoxication the illusions which 
they have formed disappear also. They learn to know each 
other, and come to the conclusion that they have made q 
mistake. In the place of this first intoxication, the cold, 
stern reality appears before them — an unhappy marriage. 
In such a case the two people either live side by side with- 
out a warmer interest in each other, or they make use of 
every available remedy to free themselves from the fetters 
of married life ; and they do not even shrink from crime 
in order to find such means. 

Such a marriage, which has been thoughtlessly and 
recklessly contracted, has always been followed by 
wretchedness, misery and despair. It has driven many 
men to dissipation and drunkenness; it has made lazy 
vagabonds of them, and they have ended their unhappy 
lives in prison. How many honest young women have 
been driven by such a marriage into the arms of vice, and 
have sunk lower and lower, until they have ended their 
miserable lives in a river ! The history of unhappy mar- 
riages' is of a revolting nature; and the number of divorces 
increases in the same ratio as unhappy marriages, as I have 



430 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

proved by figures in the chapter, "Has Christianity- 
Made Mankind Better?" 

In many civilized countries in the world, the govern- 
ment puts no obstacles in the way of forming reckless 
marriages; yet the dissolution of such marriages is always 
made a matter of difficulty, and this practice has really 
encouraged immorality and misery. The canonical law 
has established the impossibility of divorce as a main prin- 
ciple. Many other governments have partly followed 
this policy. The State of New York recognizes adultery 
as the only reason for divorce, and has thus acknowledged 
the degrading view that the sexual part of matrimony, and 
not the ideal, is the most important. Thus it is decreed 
that married people, even if they are altogether unfit to 
live with each other, and have no love for each other, 
should become hypocrites, should sham love until the end 
of their lives, but, in truth, live at enmity with each 
other and set a bad example to the children. Thus the 
bond of love which maintains marriage is destroyed; and 
when the inward, spiritual communion has ceased to exist, 
all other connection should be dissolved also. 

Nor should a dissolution of marriage take place without 
mature deliberation. If married people discover that they 
are not suited to each other, they should not think at once 
of divorce. Mutual good-will can smooth much that ap- 
pears rough. Those who have joined their hands for a 
love for life, should not trifle recklessly with such holy 
pledges. If only the heart of one is full of love, the heart 
of the other may be gained in time; and, if children are 
involved, separation becomes an unnatural and pitiable 
condition. All this should be well taken into considera- 
tion, and the words of Jesus, "Love ye one another," not 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 431 

forgotten. Love does not seek its own; it is not selfish: 
it is long-suffering and kind. Love conquers everything. 



What I have said above of love and marriage is most 
intimately connected with that which fills the hearts of 
parents — namely, children and their education, a most 
blissful, but also most responsible duty. Man is born 
with different gifts ; but all are only germs which may 
grow fruitful or sterile, to a shaded or leafless, a nourish- 
ing or poisonous tree. And what develops these germs, 
which at first appear as nothing, and which may grow into 
everything? Education. What nurses them when they 
first shoot forth? what waters the young plant in want of 
nourishment, so that it may not perish under the burning 
sun cf life? Education. What prevents the weeds from 
smothering the young plant? Education. Thus educa- 
tion rests solely with the parents. The school may assist; 
but what it can do is not sufficient. The chief purpose of 
the school is instruction in those branches of learning 
which are necessary in our life. The principal part of 
education is at home, in that soul-life which joi' s parents 
and their children, which makes each one sympathize with 
the joys and griefs of the other. 

The principal fault of the education of our time, which 
has caused much harm, is the circumstance that only the 
head, and not the heart, has been educated. But, to make 
honest and upright people, head and heart, spirit and 
feelings, should be cultured at the same time. Religion is 
the principal motor for the education of the mind and the 
heart, for all that is noble and good. It is upon this feel- 
ing that the education of a child should be based, because 



432 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

this phase of spiritual life is earlier and more intensely 
developed than the other faculties of the mind. A child 
has no clear ideas of what is good and evil, no reliable 
judgment of right and wrong; but that feeling which is 
rooted in the innate love of the child to its parents is all 
the more intense; and education is not right if it dees not 
appeal to this noble sentiment. The child is still defective 
in knowledge, its eyes are still dimmed; but these defects 
are covered by a youthful enthusiasm for truth and a thirst 
for knowledge; and he who neglects to avail himself of 
these sentiments for the guidance of the child, loses the 
strongest influence for its welfare. 

Religion stands at the head of the means of education, 
for the aim of all human culture lies in religion. All 
spiritual powers of man — sentiment, knowledge and will 
— are concentrated in this; and here man is represented 
in his most perfect form. The constantly improving 
knowledge of the divine, of the supremely beautiful, pure 
and good, is the highest aim of our spiritual nature, as is 
shown in its own constitution. The most beautiful harmony 
exists in its endeavors and effects. The more our powers 
of knowledge are cultivated, the more we feel the growth 
of love and truth within us, and the more actively work 
all those desires within us which relate to knowledge. If 
this feeling is directed toward that goal which is before us 
— to be united with all men by the love of God — then it 
cannot do without the guidance of intellect and reason; 
and it employs not only these faculties of the soul, but all 
others which strive after knowledge, and creates within us 
a desire to realize that in which man rejoices. 

Knowledge, feeling and desire are one in religion. 
This is not the case in any science or art. No object of 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 433 

knowledge and ability taxes so much the activity of our 
spirit and our heart, requires so completely the exercise of 
all our powers, as religion. And our soul rises to God in 
full harmony with all the feelings of our heart. 

Without religion the moral sense is deprived of its most 
active power. Our intentions never become facts which 
have conquered all impediments if we have no help and 
support in religion, if the voice of our conscience is not 
acknowledged as God's own sacred word, and if true love 
of God, the Almighty and All-loving, does not induce us 
to steadfast well-doing. Religion, therefore, must be the 
basis of all education; but we should remember that re- 
ligion does not exist in ecclesiastical dogmatism — not in 
the belief in miracles and supernatural things, but only in 
the belief in one Supreme Being, in God, and in the love 
of God and of our fellow-creatures. Many people are oi 
the opinion that children should be educated according to 
the unreasonable dogmas of the Church. They think that 
when they have grown up, and have begun to think for 
themselves, they will cast aside these dogmas and form 
their own opinions. That will surely be the case. But 
what shall we say of a gardener who tries to bend a little 
tree that is growing up straight, in hopes that it will get 
right again by itself? The little tree, as soon as it has re- 
gained its liberty, will certainly reassume its natural form; 
but the traces of the violence which has been done to it 
will remain. 

Parents who do not belong to the Church from con- 
viction, but allow their children to be educated in the 
belief of mysteries and dogmas, which have nothing to do 
with true religion, under the impression that they will free 
themselves and find the true way, do them great harm, 

28 



434 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

and lead them into a state of doubt and uneasiness, and 
expose them to the danger of losing their belief in God 
when they reject the belief in dogmas, and of being left 
without help and guidance in this world. If children are 
taught to assume as a sacred truth what in after life, with 
matured scientific education, proves to be a falsehood, we 
cast a doubt into their souls which may have the most fatal 
consequences, and which is sure to lead these unfortunates 
into a state of misery. Such contradictions are the cause 
of fearful struggles in the hearts of men, and have a fatal 
influence on their minds. The carelessness of youth 
throws away all belief in higher things for that very reason. 
Thousands of these live thus until they reach mature man- 
hood, and then gain the knowledge that they have been 
in error and have strayed from the right path. They will 
have to endure a hard fight to find their way out of the 
dense wood of doubt and contradictions, to gain the road 
which leads to contentment and peace of mind. Many 
have perished miserably in this struggle; and their brutal 
treatment of all that is noble and sublime has had a de- 
structive influence on others. Others have lost their reason 
by brooding over the dogmas of the Church, and have be- 
come inmates of insane asylums. And many who 
have rejected the belief in God with the belief in dogmas, 
sway helplessly to and fro, fall into crimes, and have to 
finish in a prison the education which their parents neglected. 
Therefore, ye parents, take care what you are about before 
it is too late, and do not forget for one moment the great 
responsibility which rests upon your shoulders. Teach 
your children to cling to the belief of one Supreme 
Being; teach them to love God and their neighbors; 
and they will become righteous men, who will give you 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 435 

joy, and of whom you may be proud in your gratitude 
to God. 

We hear everywhere complaints of the deplorable in- 
crease of crime ; but what is the inner cause of this sad 
fact ? Nothing else than bad education. Take this to 
heart, ye parents. It depends upon you whether your 
children shall become good and honest men, or evil-doers 
and criminals. It depends upon you whether the future 
generation will present the degrading spectacle of crowded 
prisons, with increase of crime in all directions, or 
whether it will be a generation of better men. 

But children should be actually educated : the mere at- 
tainment of reading, writing, arithmetic, and general 
knowledge, does not make good men. The moral educa- 
tion must do all — the culture and development of our 
moral power. Sealsfield, in one of his writings, says: 
" What is it that makes shrewd, world-wise people, and 
what is it that makes wise, good and noble men ? Among 
a hundred children who visit the same school, who are 
instructed by the same master, who come from parents of 
equally good standing, there are not ten of the same dis- 
position and the same qualities of mind. Their intelli- 
gence and their knowledge may be the same, but not their 
character. That is not formed in a public school, but is 
developed at home by father and mother. That gentle 
greeting in the morning, the kiss which awakens the child 
from its slumber; the loving look and the kind word 
which admonish it to work ; the flower which it receives 
from the mother ; the walk which it takes in her com- 
pany, — all these form the character and mind of the 
child." The love of father and mother is the educator 
which God has given us ; the younger the child, the more 



436 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

it stands in need of the mother's love. It takes refuge 
with her when it is in fear : when it seizes her knee and 
hides its face in her lap, it thinks that it is safe. And 
even the grown-up man, who has to endure the struggle of 
life, yet still has the happiness of having his mother, knows 
that in her heart he finds a refuge from the hard, rude 
world. And the mother preserves her love for her child, 
even if it has grown to manhood or womanhood, and has 
also become a father or mother. In her faithful heart we 
find still the old, mild, true, unchangeable love. There 
we find still a bosom on which the grown-up son or 
daughter can weep out their sorrows and cares. Oh ! it 
is a precious treasure, a faithful mother's heart. Can 
there be people who, having been brought up by a mother's 
love, can ever forget it ? Surely not ! 

I have frequently had opportunities of observing par- 
ents in their manner toward their children, and often 
have experienced the most sincere pleasure. But I have 
also often seen with pain that many parents, however care- 
ful they may have been of the physical welfare of their 
children, yet have neglected the best part of their educa- 
tion, the formation of their character. They have 
allowed them to grow up without impressing them with 
the duty of obedience ; and when they have had cause to 
blame them, they have done so in the wrong way — with 
scolding, hard words, and even with blows. The first of 
these faults, the disregard of obedience, makss of these 
children men who will despise laws and manners, neglect 
the duty they owe to their parents, and even become 
criminals. The other method of education — scolding, 
hard words and blows — can result only in estranging the 
children from their parents and making them lose their 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 437 

love for them. But if children have once lost their love, 
they can never become good men, for love alone is able 
to make good men. Show your children in words and 
deeds a good example ; impress them from early child- 
hood with the difference between good and evil; teach 
them that God's fatherly eye watches over them at all 
times ; teach them to love truth, and not to be guilty of 
falsehood even in the most trifling matter. See that they 
meet only with children of good manners, not with those 
whose parents are not upright and honorable people ; edu- 
cate them to strict observance of your commands ; do not 
suffer disobedience ; for obedience and love of truth 
are the most powerful helpers of education. But all this 
do with love and by love ; not as if you were your chil- 
dren's masters and they your slaves, but in such a manner 
that they may recognize your love at all times, and in every- 
thing which you do and say. When you are compelled to 
blame them, do not use harsh words : they will wound 
the children's hearts, and harden them, and turn them 
away from you. Reprimand them with kindness and 
calmness ; try to convince them, so that even if you blame 
them they will consider you their best friends. Woe be 
to you, and to your children, if by cruel and harsh treat- 
ment they lose their love for you ! Love alone — but not 
that criminal love which the ape has for its young — is the 
true educator. Children who have been educated in 
true, faithful love will reward their parents with love 
until the end of their days. They will always endeavor 
to please them ; they will become good and upright 
men; and when they have become fathers or mothers 
themselves, they will never lose their love for their 
parents. 



438 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Mothers, do not seek your happiness in finery and 
pleasures, but in intercourse with your children and in care 
for their welfare. Fathers, do not get into the habit of 
spending your evenings away from your family, leaving 
your wife and children to themselves. Your place is in 
your home, where you may assist your children in their 
work, teach them and entertain them, and accustom them 
from their early youth to the happiness of home-life. God 
has given you great happiness and blessings with your 
children ; but he has also imposed upon you heavy re- 
sponsibilities. Do not forget that 3 our children are im- 
mortal beings, with whose welfare you are entrusted, and 
whom you have to educate to be upright and useful 
men. 

Teaching and good example are necessary conditions in 
the education of youth ; but they do not suffice alone. A 
careful attention to the life which children growing up lead 
outside of their home is of as great importance, if you wish 
to educate them to become good men. Temptation of 
every kind is placed in the path of youth, and deprives 
them of the fruits of the education they have received 
at home. This is what fills the parental heart with grief 
and crowds the prisons with evil-doers. Children should 
be educated to independence; but we should be careful to 
avoid prematurity — the licentiousness of an unscrupulous 
young class of society, which becomes a curse to the family 
and to the country. The youth of our day are only too 
much inclined to rush into the whirlpool of dissipation 
which ruins property, honor and manly dignity. In many 
families such a desire for pleasure is encouraged, or at 
least tolerated. It is the duty of parents to fight against 
this inordinate love of pleasure, or we shall see a genera- 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 439 

tion arise which, unaccustomed to labor, lives only for en- 
joyment, and is incapable of fulfilling its duties toward the 
family and the State. 

It is our duty to develop in young people the feeling of 
self-consciousness and self-respect; but we should be care- 
ful not to go too far, lest they degenerate into a want of 
respect toward their parents and toward others. If we 
destroy idealism in young minds, we are in danger of 
destroying respect to their parents and the veneration 
which they owe to God ; and the life of the soul of a young 
man, which ought to be like that of a blooming garden, 
becomes a barren waste. Whenever the aim of the parents 
is bent upon the education of independent beings, and they 
let love be the chief power in their attempt, the feeling of 
devotion in the child will change into one of lifelong 
friendship for its parents. 

With the feeling of self-esteem and self-respect that 
of self-command should keep equal pace; for that reason 
the child should be accustomed from early youth to obey 
the commands of its parents, who are its natural guardians 
and greatest benefactors. He who has not learned to obey 
in his youth, will never understand how to act with kind- 
ness and consideration toward others; he will feel un- 
happy himself, and, being a slave of his self-will and selfish- 
ness, will become a tyrant over those who surround him. 

The education of youth is not always an easy task, but 
it can be alleviated if we consider that obedience and 
truthfulness are the cardinal virtues which are the founda- 
tion of all education. By insisting upon obedience, and 
by the invariable observance of truth, parents show the 
most sincere love to their children. It will be difficult 
sometimes to refuse the wish of a beloved child, yet it 



44Q THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

must be done if the child desires what is not good. Calm- 
ness, friendliness and determination are the means by 
which cheerful obedience can be obtained; on the other 
hand, great carefulness in commanding or forbidding 
should be observed. That which is not necessary should 
never be required, but what has been once commanded 
should be strictly enforced. It may be of use to ourselves 
and to the child to give reasons for our command, but these 
should not be given until after they have been obeyed. 

We should pay particular attention to the cultivation of 
truthfulness; but too much confidence in the veracity of 
a child may be as dangerous as want of confidence. We 
should not forget that it requires a certain strength of 
character and intellect always to speak the truth. A child 
may easily make a mistake without the intention of telling 
a falsehood; and in such a case we should not evince 
disbelief, but rather try to investigate the truth by calm 
and friendly means. The character of a child is a deli- 
cately strung instrument, which easily gets out of tune 
when it is rudely touched. 

A very important factor in the education of children is 
the class of literature which is placed in their hands. 
Many of our modern educators have had serious doubts 
whether the reading of fairy tales is of advantage to young 
children, because they bring before the child untruhful 
narratives, while all education ought to be based upon 
truth. But there are so many other good books besides the 
literature of fairy tales, that it is really not difficult to find 
appropriate reading for our children ; and for the grown-up 
young people there exists a very rich literature in every 
language. But it is not intended that our children should 
always sit brooding over books. They ought not to 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 441 

develop their intellect only, but also their body ; for a 
healthy mind can exist only in a healthy body. In the 
choice of games and other occupations we should have in 
view useful purposes for future life. We should avoid, 
above all, all games of a military tendency. We should 
stifle in the child every inclination to deeds of violence 
and the wholesale murder of war. The love for a soldier's 
life which is developed by these games, even as a play, 
has a demoralizing effect, and should be suppressed rather 
than encouraged. The boy should be taught that peace, 
.not war, makes men happy ; and that in private life, as 
well as in the life of nations, all difficulties ought to be 
settled in a peaceful way. And we should not put books 
in their hands which glorify war, but books which, by the 
representation of lives of heroes of intellect and mind, 
have brought blessings to all generations. These will 
elevate the character of youth and contribute to the mak- 
ing of good men and good citizens. Finally, there is one 
thing, my dear reader, which I would wish most seriously 
to impress upon your heart — namely, the preservation of 
the mother tongue in your family, no matter to what 
nationality you belong. Our mother tongue is the beau- 
tiful bond which unites us to our own country, no matter 
in what land we may live ; and this bond should never be 
severed, for patriotism is a sacred sentiment. Therefore, 
insist upon making the mother tongue the language of 
your household. These are the sounds with which your 
mother greeted you when you first entered life, the lan- 
guage in which your father spoke to you when he first 
pressed you to his heart. Cherish this language; and if 
that of the country in which you live with your family is 
a strange one, it has its full importance in business life ; 



442 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

yet let the mother tongue, at all times, be the language of 
your home and a sacred object in your household. 



Life has many varieties. There are educated and un- 
educated people, rich and poor ; people who are in need 
of the assistance and help of others, and others who gain a 
livelihood by supplying this help and assistance. From 
this circumstance arises the relation between masters and 
servants. Everybody has found out that good servants 
contribute to the happiness and peace of life. In order to 
establish a happy relationship, both parties should do their 
duty — servants, by a faithful fulfillment of their tasks; 
and masters, who are the more educated of the two, ought 
to have more control over themselves than the less 
educated. And if it cannot be denied that servants some- 
times leave much to be desired, it cannot be denied that 
masters often are the cause of an unpleasant relation. In all 
circumstances of life, mutual respect among those who live 
together is a most urgent necessity; and, in this instance, 
masters should set a good example by trying to gain the 
confidence and esteem of their servants. The esteem of 
servants cannot be gained by domineering and overbear- 
ing manners, but only by kindness and justice. Where 
these are practiced the servants will show respect and, what 
is worth more, affection. Masters desire obedience and 
punctuality; but they should make this obedience easy for 
the servants, and give their orders in a friendly and kind 
spirit. And we should try not to order too much. Many 
kindhearted people have the weakness to blame too much, 
and to express their discontent at every little mistake. By 
this they make themselves dissatisfied and embitter the 
lives of servants- A servant of good character who is con- 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 443 

tinually being found fault with becomes indifferent and 
careless; while another whose disposition is not a friendly 
one will become irritated and obstinate, and do his work 
in a careless manner, merely to annoy his master. Where 
the masters are kind and just, the relations between them- 
selves and their servants will generally be satisfactory for 
both parties. There will be no cross or overbearing 
demands on the one side, and no slavish obedience on the 
other. When masters and servants meet each other with 
good-will, there will be no appearance of condescension, 
which can only hurt the servant. The relationship be- 
tween masters and servants must be humane, and based 
upon mutual respect. 



Of all the evil passions which have enslaved men, 
egotism is the vilest and most dangerous. It is the rotten 
fruit on the tree of mankind ; it is the main cause of all 
wrong, all wickedness, all depravity, all baseness, and all 
misery which poison the lives of families and nations. 
The egotist may gather riches, heap up golden treasures, 
or carry a crown, but he will not gain love and respect. 
Love and selfishness are in a constant struggle in the 
hearts of men, and love ought always to be victorious. If 
selfishness gets the upper hand, man does that which is 
not righteous ; but if love conquers, he becomes virtuous. 
It is a blissful feeling when we have freed ourselves from 
the chains of egotism, when we leave the gloomy solitude, 
and by active love make ourselves the center of a grateful 
circle of men. What applies to family life affects also the 
lives of nations. In order to destroy the root of the evil 
which devours mankind, we must overcome selfishness, 
which is the most injurious active spring of life. The 



444 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

principles of justice, brotherhood and active love, which 
have been disregarded by the rulers as well as by the 
ruled, must be elevated to become the ruling principle of 
public and private life. 



We hear a great deal of talk about the commands of 
honor. What is the meaning of this word honor? We 
hear of military honor, of commercial honor, of the honor 
of nobility, of Christian honor, of woman's honor, work- 
ingman's honor, etc. Almost every grade of social posi- 
tion claims for itself a special kind of honor. Many of 
those who lay particular stress upon this honor, and 
believe it to be hurt by a word even spoken in jest, think 
they are obliged to demand satisfaction, and take recourse 
to deeds of violence, which are always dishonorable. 
And this is supposed to be required by honor; this is 
supposed to satisfy an offence. What absurd and pitiful 
ideas ! The honor of man consists solely in right-doing, 
and all different conceptions of the term are mere bubbles, 
and are not worthy of the attention of an upright man. 
True honor is inviolable ; it cannot be injured, and is not 
in want of satisfaction. 

Many consider titles and decorations an honor, and 
there are men who really desire them and rejoice in them. 
Can such trifles endow us with honor ? We have seen 
many men of high title, with their breasts covered with 
decorations, who have been the scourge of their fellow- 
creatures. There was a time when school-children received 
medals for application and good behavior, without con- 
sidering that this could only awaken evil qualities within 
them. This folly has fortunately been abandoned in 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 445 

recent times, and the children are rewarded with useful 
gifts, such as books. These titles and decorations are 
really nothing else than the medals which are given to 
school-children. They are toys which only serve to make 
men vain and to elevate themselves in their opinion above 
their fellow-creatures. A man who is conscious of his 
own dignity is not in want of decorations and titles. A 
certain Mr. Ensz received, in 1873, a decoration from a 
German prince, which he returned with the words: " He 
who possesses no inward dignity cannot receive it by 
orders and decorations ; and he who does possess it needs 
not an outward testimonial." That man was perfectly 
right. All these decorations ought to be rejected ; they 
only serve to flatter men's vanity, and are a means which 
autocrats use to gain and preserve followers. By the 
acceptance of an order of decoration a free man makes 
himself the subject of a ruler; but every thinking man, to 
whom liberty and independence are something more than 
hollow words, will never consent to accept such a decora- 
tion, which would make him a servant to the will of 
somebody else. Only weaklings and fools will attach any 
value to these trifles. 



The last honor. — When a person has died, the notice in 
the papers concerning his death is frequently found to 
contain a request to pay the " last honor" to the departed 
dead by accompanying his body to its last resting-place. 
But how can " honor" be paid to a dead person by^ the 
fact that a number of people follow his coffin, the more so 
as among such followers there are frequently many who 
took no especial interest in the deceased while he was still 



446 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

among the living, and even some who were his opponents, 
causing him anxiety and trouble while in the flesh? It is 
not "tributes of honor" that ought to accompany us to 
the grave, nothing that reminds of vanity, like outward 
show, but the love which our deeds have planted in the 
hearts of our fellow-men. Honor, bare honor, we can 
neither give to nor take from him who lies in his coffin. 
He should have been personally possessed of that quality 
while still among us. Furthermore : Is there not an amount 
of self-conceit contained in the belief that we can "honor" 
a dead man by following his body to its final resting- 
place? 

Men frequently consider themselves offended by each 
other, and in all countries innumerable contentions and 
lawsuits are the result. What is the meaning of an offence? 
Manifestations and expressions of want of esteem. But 
want of esteem can hurt only him who by his actions has 
not been able to gain respect. A well-known author said 
that if somebody accused him of having stolen a silver 
spoon, he would not even raise his eyes if it were not true. 
That is a very sound principle; for he who utters a baseless 
accusation does no harm to him against whom it is directed, 
but only to himself, by making himself a slanderer. 
There can be no question of a real offence ; but he who 
intends such a one should be punished in as severe a man- 
ner as he who makes an attack upon the life of a fellow- 
man; for one's fair name is worth as much as life itself. 



The love of truth is one of the bases of self-contentment, 
as well as of the respect which we demand from others. 
The highest object of our life is the search after truth, 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 447 

and the love of truth is our supreme happiness ; it teaches 
us to live and act righteously. Truth is always self-evident 
and harmonious in itself, and can never be contradicted. 
An untruth is uncertain, incoherent, and full of contra- 
dictions, leading from one inconsistency to another. 
Truth makes a good impression at once ; an untruth, no 
matter how cleverly it is uttered, will arouse at once sus- 
picion. Truth is that sacred standard of our morality 
which nobody can violate without degrading his own dig- 
nity. A man whose love for truth is not above doubt is at 
once looked upon with suspicion, no matter how superior 
may be his gifts of intellect. For we never know whether 
he speaks truth or falsehood, whether he uses his words for 
our benefit or for our disadvantage. On the other hand, 
a man of less brilliant and intellectual gifts, in whose 
veracity we may trust, will always be esteemed as a friend 
and counselor or companion. 

Few people recognize this fact, and, therefore, deviate 
from truth to their own and their fellow-creatures' disad- 
vantage. Many believe themselves to have done enough 
when they speak but half a truth ; but, in the same way 
that half-virtue is no better than weakness, half-truth is 
worse than a lie, because it shelters itself under the ap- 
pearane'e of truth. He who accustoms himself to conceal 
his thoughts and feelings gains a dangerous gift ; for at the 
rate at which we become possessed of this faculty, we lose 
that of giving expression to them. 

Many people think that so-called white lies are harmless ; 
but for what reason ? They make use of this sham defense 
to hide a wrong which they have committed. All lies, 
white or black, are based upon wrong, and can only cause 
wrong in their consequences. Righteous action under no 



448 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

circumstances shuns the light ; and an untruth for no cause 
whatever can claim justification. 

Another kind of untruth is exaggeration.- Many people 
have fallen into the "habit of exaggerating the events of 
everyday life without any evil thought or purpose. No 
matter how harmless these exaggerations may be in many 
instances, they exercise an evil influence upon those who 
accustom themselves to the habit, because others are always 
inclined to doubt their statements, even if they are in ac- 
cordance with truth. 

Another kind of untruth is that of not keeping your 
word ; it is an evil habit to which many people are ad- 
dicted. And how can a man who does not keep his word 
— and there are many who never keep their word — how can 
such a man claim the confidence of others? Self-respect, 
if nothing else, should keep us from this evil habit. 

Another kind of untruth is slander. How easily and 
how frequently is this wrong committed, and how great is 
the mischief which it has caused ! It is our duty to be 
just in our judgment of our fellow- creatures, even of our 
enemies ; and we should take to heart the old saying of the 
Bible: "Do toward others as thou wouldst that they 
should do unto thee." 

A man who avoids giving testimony before a court of 
law, commits an act of injustice by the concealment of 
truth. Whoever has knowledge of a wrong or a crime, 
intended or committed, is bound in duty to communicate 
his knowledge to the authorities, to prevent an intended 
crime, or to punish one that has been committed. He 
who neglects this duty either from fear or from thought- 
lessness, or because he thinks that it is none of his business, 
makes himself an accomplice of the crime and renders 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 449 

himself as punishable as the criminal. Crime and wrong 
can only be prevented or lessened if honest and virtuous 
people assist the authorities in the execution of their duty ; 
and this should be the solemn task of all those who care 
for the public welfare and general happiness. The truly 
honest and truly virtuous man does not only leave undone 
that which is dishonest and vicious, but he tries to fight 
against it, to prevent it, and to extirpate it. The morality 
of those people who think that this is none of their busi- 
ness is based upon a very weak foundation. 

The taking of an oath is closely connected with our 
giving testimony to the best of our knowledge. Jesus 
commanded (Matthew v. 34) that nobody should take an 
oath, but that his simple yea or nay should be sufficient ; 
but in the course of time it has, unfortunately, become evi- 
dent that the simple yea or nay has not been suf- 
ficiently binding on men's consciences, and it has been 
thought necessary to find a more binding form in place of 
the simple assurance. This idea is the origin of the oath. 
But, unfortunately, no great advantage has been gained 
by it, and the cause of this is the abuse of the oath. "We 
see that an oath is required under the most trivial circum- 
stances. The oath for military service is actually enforced 
by punishment, and the oath in political affairs is treated 
with absolute contempt. 

It is the purpose of an oath to ascertain and establish the 
truth, and from times immemorial an oath has served as 
a principal means for a judge to ascertain the truth. It 
has been supposed that even the most truthful man, when 
he has called God as a witness of the truth of his testi- 
mony, has been more careful than ever in establishing the 
veracity of his evidence; whilst the man who is not over- 

29 



450 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

particular in his statements in ordinary life, will become 
more careful and conscientious in his words when they are 
recorded upon his oath. An oath, no matter in what form 
it is given, is an appeal to public belief which must be 
kept sacredly and conscientiously. Perjury is a crime 
against conscience and faith ; and the oath, if it is not 
kept sacred, will cause the dissolution of all ties which 
unite society. But the form of the oath should not be 
contrary to our inward conscience; and he who does not 
believe in Christian dogmas should not take an oath in the 
form of the Christian creed. Such an oath would at once 
become perjury, and come very near to that Jesuitical 
sophistry which we find in Busembaum (" Medull. Theol.," 
Lib. 3, Tract 2), and which reads as follows: " He who 
has taken an oath without the intention of keeping 
it, is not bound by it, unless it is to avoid public scandal ; 
for he has not really taken an oath, but merely trifled 
with it." 

He who takes an oath upon the Bible or the Christian 
faith, intends to testify that that which he means to say is 
as true as his belief in Christian dogmas or in the contents 
of the Bible. Yet many who have entirely discarded 
Christian dogmatism, many who have never read the Bible, 
or have never been convinced of the truth of its contents, 
or who even positively do not believe in it, have recklessly 
taken this oath. And how many acts of perjury have been 
committed by unconscientious people besides these reck- 
less oaths, taken without forethought ! Only quite re- 
cently a minister of religion, of high standing in New 
York, who was accused of adultery, in spite of the most 
damning evidence, denied his guilt and affirmed his evi- 
dence by a false oath. 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 451 

The form of taking the oath differs in different coun- 
tries. For instance, in Germany, he who takes an oath 
lifts up the second and third fingers of his right hand ; in 
England the forefinger of the right hand is placed upon 
the Bible ; in the United States the witness kisses the 
Bible ; in Italy the witness places his right hand on his 
heart and pronounces the words: "I swear before God 
and man." In the United States, a witness who does not 
believe in the Christian dogmas is permitted merely to 
affirm. But all these are only outward forms, and we 
should accustom ourselves, in everyday life as well as 
before a court of law, to speak the truth at all times, and 
never to utter a word which is not in accordance with our 
conscience. 

Two celebrated Germans, Alexander von Humboldt 
and Frederick Schiller, have pronounced their opinions 
on this subject, which, strange to say, are diametrically 
opposed to each other. At the beginning of his letters to 
Varnhagen von Ense, we find the following words of 
Humboldt as a motto: "We owe truth only to thos<j 
whom we deeply respect." Schiller's maxim is : " Trutlj 
is due to our enemies as well as to our friends." Thf 
choice between these two principles will not be difficult 
to him who really and disinterestedly respects truth. 



If, in any circumstances, we are in doubt as to what wt, 
ought to do, particularly if it is a matter of difference 
between ourselves and another, there will always be, 
among the different views which we entertain on the 
subject, one which leaves a doubt in our mind whether 
that which we feel inclined to do is right and just, whilst 



452 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

the second leaves no such doubt. In such a case we only 
act honestly if we let our opponent ha e the benefit of 
the doubt — that is to say, if we do that which leaves no 
doubt about the righteousness of our action. If we follow 
this principle, we shall always do right. Another and 
sure criterion of right and wrong is the question whether 
we have cause to conceal what we are about to do. 
Righteous actions do not shun publicity, and need under 
no circumstances be concealed bef re the world. But 
that which must be hidden is always wrong, for evil deeds 
shun the light because they are in fear of punishment — 
either the punishment of the law, or that which is really 
more hurtful than the law — the blame and contempt of 
our fellow-creatures. 



Activity and work are the most important means of 
producing happiness. He who does not find pleasure in 
work loses all faculty of joyous existence. A man, no 
matter how rich he is, cannot be happy if he has no work 
to do. He cannot be contented and satisfied without 
activity. The task of our life is to be active ; and, if we 
desire, we can find a field for our activity wherever we 
look. f It relieves him who is loaded with care, and pro- 
tects us from temptation. 

Nobody enjoys the pleasures of this world so little, 
nobody is to himself so great a burden, as' he who does 
nothing. Only activity can teach us the true enjoyment 
of life, and only he who knows what it is to work can know 
the pleasure of recreation. But re reation can be a pleas- 
ure to us only when we feel the want of it ; and a lazy 
man can never feel the want of it. 



PERTATNTNG TO MORALITY. 453 

Economy is closely connected with our love for labor: 
the former is a consequence of the latter. The more 
economical a man is, the greater is his desire for work by 
which to support his family in an honest manner. Economy 
increases in the same ratio as wealth. The most saving 
people known are the French. According to the statistics 
of savings banks, we find that $13.90 come to every in- 
habitant per annum in England, $16.60 in the United 
States, and $31.40 in France. But woe to him who allows 
his inclination for economy to become exaggerated into 
avarice ! Economy is one of the principles of human happi- 
ness ; but avarice, as the proverb says, is the root of all 
evil. 



No enemies. — Many people, in order not to have their 
peace of mind disturbed, strive not to make enemies; but, 
unfortunately, this is almost impossible for a man of char- 
acter, no matter how kindly or peaceably he may be dis- 
posed. A man of character who has the courage to express 
his opinions and thoughts freely and without reserve, in- 
stead of weakly assenting to everything, is sure to make 
enemies. But this should not trouble him. Enemies are 
as necessary as fresh air. Like the oak, round which the 
storm rages only to strengthen it, the strength of an honest 
man will be fortified and increased by the opposition 
which he meets ; and if he makes enemies on one side, he 
will meet with friends ou the other who will help him to 
gain the victory. A man of principle and uprightness 
need not fear slander ; his walk through life is open to 
everybody, and the vilest calumnies of his enemies only 
do him good. 



454 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

When some people reach old age, they trouble and tor- 
ment themselves day by day with imaginary grievances, 
which only embitter their lives. If these people would but 
write down what has embittered their lives, and, after a 
few weeks or months, read the notes, they would find that 
their troubles have mostly been unnecessary, and were not 
actual misfortunes, as they imagined at the time, but, 
ordinarily, little unpleasantnesses which they could easily 
have set aside. Why should we foolishly and unnecessarily 
embitter our short lives ? There is enough real trouble in 
this world, and it is better and wiser to save our strength 
for that. 



We assume, sometimes, habits which at first appear per- 
fectly harmless, but which are often the seed that produces 
dangerous and poisonous fruit. To these habits belongs 
the use of alcoholic liquors. A man begins with one 
modest drink a day; but his appetite increases with the 
enjoyment, until he loses all control over his habit. This 
habit becomes a passion, and the respectable man is changed 
into a drunkard, and ends his life a drunkard, having 
ruined himself, his wife, and his children. This is a road 
to ruin on which thousands and thousands have traveled 
who had no strength to resist temptation in good time. 
Another evil habit is the habitual visit to drinking-places, 
clubs and other societies. A man may, without injury to 
anybody, spend, from time to time, an hour outside of his 
farnily in conversation with his friend over a glass of beer 
or wine ; but such a life outside of a home should not be- 
come a habit, for many families have been ruined in con- 
sequence of it. Hazlitt says: "The chain of habit coils 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 455 

itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and 
stifle it." 



He who has observed life closely has often heard common- 
place ideas expressed in a thoughtless and apparently- 
harmless manner; but in reality they are not harmless. 
For instance: " Once can't hurt;" "What will people say 
to it?" " Others do the same ;" " You must do in Rome 
as the Romans do." Let us look a little more closely at 
these everyday expressions. "Once can't hurt" is the 
most deceptive of all these maxims, and he who first pro- 
nounced it must have been a very poor arithmetician. 
Once is once, and nothing less or more. He who has 
stolen once can never again say with a clear conscience 
that he has never appropriated other people's property; 
and, if the thief is caught, he is put in prison. On the con- 
trary, it would be better to say that once is ten times and 
a hundred times ; for he who has once entered upon the 
path of unrighteousness cannot easily be led from it. He 
who says "A" is easily induced to say "B;" and then 
another household saying can be applied : " The pitcher 
goes often to the well, but is broken at last." 

" What will people say to it?" seems to be a very harm- 
less question, yet it is proof of an entire absence of 
independence of character, and is frequently followed by 
all kinds of folly, and even worse consequences. The 
fear of what other people will say about our actions induces 
us often to leave undone what is right and to do what is 
foolish and wrong. But do these other people, for whose 
opinion we care, help us when the right which we have 
left undone and the wrong which we have done lead us 



456 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

into danger and difficulties? Certainly not. A man 
should only do that which according to his own judgment 
is right and reasonable. Silvio Pellico says: "The 
climax of all baseness is to make ourselves slaves of the 
opinion of others when we know that it is wrong." We 
should consult our conscience, and not ask the opinion of 
other people. 

The philosophy of covering our own follies and unjust 
actions with the excuse that others do the same, is as false 
and injurious as the preceding; nothing can be more 
hurtful than this idea. It is a pitiable testimony of the 
weakness of those whose actions are determined by those 
of others, who do things for which they have no reason- 
able motive merely for the sake of imitating other 
people. Yet thousands and thousands act in this manner, 
by which they prove tnat they are not sufficiently inde- 
pendent and intelligent to be responsible for their own 
actions. It seems incomprehensible that a man can 
lose his head so completely as to imitate others. 
Many a one has made himself ridiculous, or has 
caused himself serious embarrassment, by this want 
of self-reliance. There is no greater folly in this 
world than doing something merely because others 
do it. 

Ask a young girl who works in a factory, or makes 
herself blind with sewing for beggarly pay, instead of 
taking a place as servant in a respectable household — ask 
her why she buys ridiculous and worthless ornaments, such 
as rings and necklaces ; why she does not rather save her 
little wages for the future ; ask her why she follews a 
ridiculous and ugly fashion, and the answer will be: 
1 ' Because others do it. ' ' 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 457 

Ask a half-grown boy why he wastes his beautiful youth, 
instead of learning some profitable business; why he 
smokes, frequents taverns and gambles, or keeps late hours 
with bad companions, and his reply will be: "Because 
others do it." 

Ask many a father and many a mother why they permit 
their children to do things which they know are injurious 
to them, and their answer will be: " Others do it also." 

This "Others do it also" has caused much harm and 
mischief. Would it not be more honorable to oppose by 
a good example that which is unreasonable or wicked, 
instead of making ourselves the miserable slaves of the 
follies of other people? We should not prostitute our 
dignity and self-respect by imitating others, but seek our 
pride in independent action, according to the laws of our 
conscience and our reason. 

To "do in Rome as the Romans do" is another fal- 
lacious maxim which, unfortunately, is heard too fre- 
quently, and determines the line of conduct of weak- 
hearted people. What does it mean ? It means that if 
other people do foolish and wicked things, we should not 
oppose them, but let them alone, and follow their ex- 
ample; in its injurious consequences this maxim resembles 
very much " Others do it also." It is a miserable theory 
which no sensible man ought to follow. The Romans may 
do some very foolish and wicked things, but a sensible man 
will not imitate them simply because he dwells among them. 

Another fallacious axiom is that "belief makes us 
happy." Not every belief makes us happy; not that 
which is based upon error and miracles ; only that belief 
which, according to our reason, is based upon truth. 



458 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Among the most miserable creatures that walk this 
earth are those wretched women who have been led astray 
from the path of virtue, and have fallen so low that they 
have given themselves up to a life of shame — to prostitu- 
tion. But how has this happened? They have been 
seduced through the wickedness of man ; for every 
woman, like every other created being, was originally 
pure; and wherever a girl entered upon the path of vice, 
it was not her own free will, but the temptation of the 
seducer which brought about her ruin. But this circum- 
stance is never taken into consideration when passing 
judgment upon these unfortunate beings. It is, on the 
contrary, a sad experience that a fallen woman who 
wishes to return to a better life is despised and shunned 
more by her own sex, by her sisters who have escaped the 
temptations of the seducer, than by others. The mere 
fact that a woman has fallen a victim to the seductive 
powers of a man causes many so-called respectable women 
to avoid the pitiable creature. This frigid attitude has 
driven many a poor, weak girl into the arms of vice. 
One friendly word, a loving hand, might have saved the 
unfortunate, might have given her back to honor and 
virtue; but among her "virtuous M sisters she only meets 
with cold looks and words of contempt. Can we wonder 
that she sinks lower and lower, until she has reached the 
verge of the abyss? And what becomes of the seducer? 
He moves free and unmolested in all circles of society; 
no blame is attached to him ; and he is courted and flat- 
tered by those very women who have nothing but con- 
tempt and horror for his victim. These good Christian 
women, who are so much interested in the conversion of 
the heathen, have not a word of sympathy for their fallen 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 459 

sisters. They boast of their Christian sentiment; but 
they do not know the meaning of the word which Jesus 
said to those who brought an adulteress to him, that he 
might judge her: "Let him who is without sin cast 
the first stone." Shame upon these hypocrites and 
Pharisees ! 

Mrs. Jameson, an excellent judge of everything con- 
cerning her sex, says: "Virtue is no virtue until it has 
experienced temptation . ' ' How many proud women walk 
through the world with a firm step, with an uplifted head 
and scornful lip, who have gained the crown of lilies 
without having experienced the terrors of the martyr! 
They walk along peaceably and undisturbed ; temptation 
never came near to them and with a seductive smile tried 
to lead them on its flowery path. They are happy ; but 
they should also be kind : they should not judge harshly 
those whose life has been a stormy one; they should not 
look down with contempt upon those who were seized 
by vertigo, whose foot has stumbled, whose strength 
has weakened. Have pity on these, and do not cast 
stones at them ! Have pity, and give the lie to the 
words of the writer who has said: "A woman weeps 
over the misfortunes of all except the faults of a fallen 
sister." 

In the well-known trial of Mr. Beecher for seducing 
Mrs. Tilton, Mr. Beach, one of the counsel in the suit, 
said: "Where a virtuous woman first falls, the guilt 
always belongs to the tempter, and the punishment ought 
all to be his; and yet how strange are the ways of the 
world ! The weak, deluded woman, falling through the 
very power and exaltation of her best affections, is damned 
in the estimation of the world, and he who should bear all 



460 THE CpMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

the guilt lives as he will hereafter; he is accepted as a 
proper associate by pure and upright men." 

It is a horrible and abominable crime when a man has 
tried to ensnare a woman, and has left her when his pur- 
pose has been reached. It is a base crime, which cries to 
heaven for vengeance, when a man, to accomplish his 
purpose, has seduced a woman by false pretenses and 
promises, and leaves her mercilessly to her fate, to seek 
new victims of his criminal desires. 

When Matthias Claudius sent his son John to the Uni- 
versity, he wrote in his album : " Never do wrong to a girl, 
but remember that your mother also was a girl." These 
are precious words which every man, young or old, should 
write in his heart with letters of fire. 



He who is obliged to read the newspapers cai seldom 
take one in his hand without finding a number of crimes 
and misdeeds reported ; and we feel inclined to look with 
anger and contempt upon those who have committed them. 
But should such crimes not awaken within us other feel- 
ings? The well-known author, Sacher-Masoch, a short 
time ago wrote: "Modern science has arrived at the 
humane conclusion to look upon those who have violated 
or injured the privileges of society, not so much as crimi- 
nals against the moral constitution of the world, or doers 
of preconceived or intentional wrong, but as people who 
are not responsible for their actions; as beings whom 
nature has endowed with a bestial organization, whose 
minds are disturbed, whose education has been neglected, 
or as unfortunate beings who have been driven to excesses 
by bitter fate. The consequence of this view has been to 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 461 

change the legislation of all civilized countries. In this 
manner it is agreed that it is not the duty of society to 
punish a criminal, to return evil for evil, or to brand him 
for life, but rather to make him innocuous, and, above all, 
to improve him and ennoble him, and to lead him to a 
healthful, moral life of honest labor." 

The author is right. A man whose moral action is based 
upon a belief in God's fatherly love despises no fellow- 
being, no matter how low it may have sunk. He does 
not forget that every man is his brother; he does not nurse 
contempt for him who has gone astray, or even for the 
criminal, but only cherishes pity. 

It should not be said that even the lowest is lost alto- 
gether. We should never despair of improving him ; and 
we should never forget that the unfortunate man would not 
be where he is if his education had been different, if he 
had not in his childhood been in want of love, which 
always leads us to the good. As long as man lives, even 
after a life of depravity, his better self may bring forth a 
fresh leaf and fresh blossoms. A man can always return 
to the right path, entertain noble thoughts, conceive noble 
emotions, and do kind actions. No, we should never lose 
faith in the reformation of any man. Frequently it has 
only been one careless hour, one little step from the path 
of virtue, which has ruined a whole life that might have 
been one of honor and happiness. The path of evil leads 
quickly downward ; but to return is difficult, because that 
leads upward. 

We should all be active to assist him who has fallen to 
travel on this difficult road and reach again the height. 
And we can do this if we do not contemptuously reject 
him who has done wrong, but assist him, to the best of 



462 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

our ability, to return to the right path. Even he to whom 
life has been a hard struggle — and it has been terribly hard 
to every criminal — will experience some moments, no mat- 
ter how indifferent he has become, when a deep and burning 
feeling will come over him, when he is in want of a sym- 
pathizing human heart. The criminal is not without heart, 
and if he meets another which shows him love and 
sympathy, his own will soften, and a feeling of sorrow and 
joy will come over him of which he had no idea before. 

Many of those whom we know as criminals, have been 
brought to that position by bad parents and bad education, 
whilst others have been purposely led to a life of crime 
from their earliest childhood, and others have inherited 
the evil spirit from their parents. We should always take 
these circumstances into, consideration. We should never 
forget that it is no merit of ours if we are better than those 
unfortunate ones. It is no merit of ours that we have 
been gifted with a better disposition — that we have grown 
up under favorable conditions, with good parents, good 
education, and with the good example of righteous people 
before us. 

Most crimes do not originate in a positive inclination 
for evil, or, even less, in a defective knowledge of good, 
but generally in want of energy and will-power, and in 
wantonness. Alight heart is a beautiful gift for life; it 
helps us to overcome many difficulties which oppress those 
who are not so favorably constituted. But a light heart does 
not mean wantonness, which leads to depravity and ruin. 



People, in order to promote prohibitory laws, are fre- 
quently in the*,habit of ascribing the misdeeds of criminals 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 463 

to the use of spirituous liquors. Moderation in drinking, 
as well as in everything else, is a sacred duty; but facts 
do not prove that immoderate drinking is the cause of 
crime, as is generally supposed. On the contrary, it has 
been proved that in most instances crimes committed in 
a state of intoxication were by men who in their sober 
senses have been of a brutal and degraded character, in 
whom drunkenness has only brought to light the worst 
side of their character. Men of character and moral 
sense, even if they have once forgotten themselves and 
taken more than is good for them, have never proceeded 
to excesses, much less to crimes. Mr. G. Mott, formerly 
Superintendent of the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, 
says : "I am firmly convinced that our State prisons are not 
filled by people whose crimes are th£ result of drunkenness. 
Delinquents of this class are sent to penitentiaries and ordi- 
nary lockups. ' ' The majority of prison-oflcers are of the 
same opinion. Habitual drunkards commit, as a rule, 
petty thefts and misdemeanors, or crimes, which 
generally are the result of momentary excitement; 
they are sent to prison also for fighting and other 
disorderly conduct. Drunkenness as a habit occurs 
rarely among the class of dangerous criminals, because 
they are in want of all their senses and all their 
intellect in the execution of their crimes. Soberness, 
steady nerves, and unusual mechanical skill, are nec- 
essary for the successful accomplishment of their 
crimes, many of which require extraordinary acuteness 
and intelligence. 

In the Maryland State Prison there were, in November, 
1 881, one hundred and seventy-one strict temperance 
men ; two hundred and forty-two used alcoholic liquors in 



464 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

moderation ; one hundred and seventy-one used liquor 
immoderately at intervals, and only four were habitual 
drunkards. Let us therefore be careful, and not find 
the cause for crime in the use of intoxicating drinks. 
Nor should we be induced to put in force prohibition 
laws — which are in opposition to personal liberty 
— on account of such crimes. In the State of Maine 
absolute prohibition has existed for many years; yet we 
know that the consumption of spirituous liquors is as 
great there as in any other State. By such laws drunk- 
enness cannot be abolished; on the contrary, it will only 
be stimulated. The fight against the immoderate use of 
intoxicating liquors is a perfectly justified and noble move- 
ment; but it should not degenerate, as is the case 
in the United States, ^nto a contest for absolute prohi- 
bition, and interference with personal liberty and the 
most fundamental rights of the citizen. If such is the 
case, it is the duty of every sensible man to contend 
with all his power against this infringement on his 
rights. 



In the same manner as it endeavors, by an absolute pro- 
hibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors, 
to deprive everybody of the use of spirituous drinks and 
force the people to be contented with the use of water, 
tea and coffee, Christian fanaticism is intent upon the 
enforcement of the Sunday Laws. The Sunday Laws, 
which condemn every action on Sunday except that of 
preaching and going to church as a desecration of 
Sunday — these so-called Blue Laws are the heirloom 
of the Puritans, who, although persecuted themselves, 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 465 

made themselves infamous by their cruel persecution df the 
Quakers and those of other belief. 

A few hundred years have passed away, and not one of 
these people who try to exercise the same tyranny to-day, 
comprehends that mankind and its views of the world 
have completely changed, and if they try to improve 
religious feeling by an enforcement of the Sunday 
Laws, they produce the very contrary effect, as they 
make it impossible for those who differ from their 
opinion, and who will not be made slaves, to become 
church-attendants. Mankind has made immense progress 
since the publication of those laws; and what may 
have appeared useful and desirable two hundred years 
ago, is no longer fit for the people of these days, 
who are not willing to be guided by the priests like 
children. 

No sensible man will think of prescribing to others how 
they should spend the Sabbath-day, and every free man 
has the right to demand that nobody should spoil his 
Sunday. Man has not been created for the Sabbath, but 
the Sabbath has been made for man. But it ought not to 
be devoted to church-attendance alone, but to recreation 
from the work of the past week, and to preparation for the 
work of the coming week. It should also be the day of 
social enjoyments. God does not intend this world to 
be a Trappist monastery, in which one man passes by the 
other with downcast looks and without uttering a word, 
but he has scattered innumerable lovely, sweet-smelling 
flowers on our path. He has given us beautiful gifts 
without number, and he would not have given thern^o us 
if it had not been his will that we should enjoy them and 
delight in them. 

30 



466 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Is it possible to find in these days an argument in favor 
of suspending all business activity on one day of the week ? 
It would be of incalculable injury if all communication by 
railroad or by steam-navigation were suspended for one 
day in the week ; yet this is the intention of the Sunday 
Laws. And do the fanatics who are trying to enforce 
these obnoxious laws upon their fellows-citizens observe 
them themselves? Not in the least. We see many of 
them drive along on Sundays in splendid carriages, or they 
make use of railroads and steamboats, just like those 
whom they wish to oppress; they use street-cars and 
stages for going to and from church, when they could very 
well walk the short distance. To them applies the say- 
ing: " Judge me according to my words, but not accord- 
ing to my deeds." 

The spirit of our century is directly opposed to all laws 
which interfere with personal liberty. It is particularly 
opposed to these antiquated Sunday Laws, which have no 
standing and no life in our age, whatever the fanatics may 
say ; the least in a country where the principle of liberty is 
the principle of supreme government, and which boasts of 
being the freest country on the face of the earth. 



Self-respect is an innate quality in every honorable man ; 
it is an expression of the fulfillment of his duty, and it 
protects us against egotism and undignified actions. 
Pride and self-conceit are condemnable, whether they rely 
upon intellectual faculties, money, position, or other 
worldly considerations. Ambition, greed, revenge, and 
the desire of self-aggrandizement, are among the evils 
which extinguish good qualities in the hearts of men, 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 467 

which have brought families into misery, and, when they 
have dwelt in the hearts of rulers, have ruined whole 
nations. 



Courage is considered as one of the virtues; but not 
every courageous action is based upon this virtue. We 
must make a distinction between moral and physical 
courage; and, between these, the first stands above the 
latter. Moral courage faces everything for the sake of 
principle, and is not manifested by the impulse of a 
moment. This moral conviction is based upon an ideal 
desire after the sublime; it has no material aids; it has 
only one source — supreme morality. It is an oft-proven 
fact that moral courage, which contends for a conviction 
and opposes prejudices, is far more rare than physical 
courage, which calmly faces a pistol or other deadly 
weapon. Want of moral courage is frequently manifested 
in everyday life by many people who have not the 
courage to oppose that which is base and dishonorable. 
They submit silently to that which is wrong, and counte- 
nance it by their apparent assent. Selfishness is the 
motive of many of these people; and, although they preach 
day after day against the almighty dollar, they are too 
cowardly to resist dishonor if the least advantage 
accrues from non-resistance. 

Physical courage, which is principally based upon physi- 
cal strength, is found even among the most degraded of 
criminals. Physical courage is most esteemed in the 
soldier when he shows it in battle; but even there this 
courage is not based upon a moral foundation . The soldier 
acts only upon the command which is given him, and, 



468 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

therefore, acts involuntarily; and, after all, war is nothing 
better than wholesale murder. How much superior, how 
much more worthy of our admiration, is the courage of a 
physician or a nurse who, during the time of an epidemic, 
hastens to the bed of sickness with self-sacrificing contempt 
of death ! — the courage of a man who ventures his own life 
in rescuing the drowning man from the waters! — the 
courage of a fireman who rushes through the flames of a 
burning house to save a life ! — the courage of one who 
throws himself in front of a locomotive to save a human 
life ! — the courage of the captain of a vessel who will not 
leave the sinking ship until the last passenger has been 
saved, knowing that he will be a victim to the waves! 
These are traits of real courage which fill us with the 
highest admiration for those who are capable of such deeds 
of self-sacrifice. Courage is ennobled only by the motives 
of its actions. 



It is said that education makes us free. This is true 
enough; yet not the one-sided education of the intellect 
only, but that of the heart also, which really determines 
the value of a man. Without this refining culture of the 
heart, the culture of the intellect and of knowledge has 
very little or no actual value. A look into our prisons 
teaches us how many really educated people are punished 
there; and the statistics of crime give indisputable evi- 
dence that some of the most refined and educated people 
have become victims of the hangman. None of these so- 
called educated people could have sunk so low if they had 
possessed education of the heart as well as of the intellect. 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 469 

We write over our houses and over our doors the word 
fraternity, and it is ever ready on our tongue ; but the 
word alone does not elevate and beautify our lives. It be- 
comes a living fact only by self-denying sacrifice, by the hard- 
fought victory over our selfishness. In our acts of mercy, 
in the self-sacrificing assistance rendered to our fellow- 
creatures — there only its sublime meaning will shine forth. 



A degrading feature of our time is the greed for wealth, 
which has caused unspeakable mischief to those who made 
this the object of their life. Riches cannot nuke us 
happy ; we should be satisfied if we have a sufficient in- 
come to be able to educate our children, who afterward 
can work for themselves and make their way in life. In- 
numerable examples teach us that no worldly splendor can 
give us contentment. Only when our soul and our actions 
are in perfect harmony, when we are free from the tor- 
ments of remorse, can we enjoy real happiness; and this 
we find among the poor more frequently than among the 
rich. The Creator has given a share of happiness to every 
one, and he who earnes^y seeks happiness is sure to find 
it ; and, above all, in useful activity and work. Labor, 
faithfulness, industry and moderation, will suffice to make 
a home for all, in which contentment and happiness will 
abide. The worth of a man does not depend upon his 
social position, or upon an humble vocation, or upon 
whether he is rich or poor, the descendant of a noble 
family or the son of a laborer, whether a king, an emperor, 
a peasant, or a beggar; it depends entirely upon his 
thoughts and actions. It is not the ragged, shabby coat 
that makes the rabble, but lowmindedness and mean 



47o THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD 

actions, even if they are clothed in velvet and silks, and 
adorned with gold and diamonds. 



Forgive ! — If we have had a quarrel with anybody, no 
matter whether he is a friend or a stranger, or if we have 
done wrong to somebody, we should not seek our bed at 
night without having asked him to forgive us. It seems 
as if night and sleep increase and fortify the displeasure 
which animates our souls; and it is really not so difficult 
to say a word of reconciliation or apology when we have 
done wrong to our neighbor. But many men, who find it 
easy enough to offend another, have not the courage to 
speak a word of reconciliation, because selfishness, that 
evil counselor, whispers in their ear that they would offend 
their dignity-by doing so. How foolish, how small, how 
false ! On the contrary, by withdrawing an offensive word 
spoken in haste we honor ourselves. Only a mean -hearted 
man can intentionally do wrong to others; and it is surely 
not very difficult to mend what is wrong. A hearty 
acknowledgment of the wrong we have done, and a word 
of apology, take away all bitterness which has crept into 
the offended heart ; and, even if the word of apology is not 
spoken, we will be forgiven by a noble-hearted man ; but 
the sting of the offence will, nevertheless, remain in his heart. 

The little -word forgive works like a charm. We not 
only forgive, but forget; and only by forgiving and forget- 
ting can peace be re-established in our hearts. The recon- 
ciling love which manifests itself in forgiving and forget- 
ting an injury is the purest reflection of the divine element 
in man. 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 471 

Much of our earthly happiness depends upon our be- 
havior toward those with whom we are united by ties of 
family or friendship, or with whom we are connected in 
the ordinary intercourse of life. We all know how a 
friendly, courteous word affects us, and we always are 
attracted toward those who meet us in a courteous and 
kind manner. A warm pressure of the hand, a 
hearty welcome, a cheerful tone of voice, an encouraging 
wcrd, all contribute to our happiness; whilst an unfriendly 
word, a cold and repulsive behavior, have caused much 
sorrow and unhappiness. 

But outward politeness and friendliness alone should not 
determine our conduct toward others, but that inward 
good-will which man owes to man, which proceeds from 
our hearts, and sheds light and warmth on the hearts of 
others. Politeness is only an outward form which fre- 
quently clothes the very contrary of good-will; but polite- 
ness which comes from the heart gives pleasure to the giver 
and to the receiver. 



Patriotism and national sentiment are two ideas which, 
noble in themselves, have only too frequently been dragged 
down into the mire, particularly where it has been a ques- 
tion of war, which means ruin and injury to the life and 
welfare of other nations. As war is in itself immoral and 
ignoble, such patriotism as furthers it is not a real virtue. 
True patriotism and true national sentiment seek to further 
the welfare of the country without injuring others; and 
they tan do this by increasing morality, honesty, and 
mutual prosperity. The arts of war are not the deeds of 
true patriotism, but the arts and virtues of peace are really 
patriotism. 



472 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

National sentiment is a perfectly justified one, for 
common language, manners and interest unite people as 
they do the members of one family. But, as national 
life is of higher consideration tlian family life, humanity 
must stand above nationality; and, as family life should 
not injuriously affect national life, humanity should not be 
injured by national sentiment. It is a great crime against 
humanity to hold out national feeling as a bait to set one 
nation against the other. 

The cherishing of national feeling is really the founda- 
tion of patriotism ; but it has been so used and degraded by 
autocratic rulers as to become national fanaticism, and, like 
every other fanaticism, has awakened bitter feelings and en- 
mity. All those wars which have ruined the prosperity of 
nations have been caused by it. This ignoble and exclu- 
sive nationalism is an enemy of culture and of progress. 

We should carefully distinguish between noble and true 
national sentiment and patriotism and that which is hol- 
low and pretended. A recent author, Dr. Loeffler, makes 
the following remarks about false patriotism : " We read 
in certain patriotic songs that we ought to manure the 
fields of our fatherland with the corpses of our enemies. 
An enemy must be of very little worth if he can only be 
used as manure. Every country has its own kind of 
patriotism, or at least its political and patriotic songs, and 
these ideas are only too frequently confused with each 
other. The consequence is that those whom you call 
enemies give the same name to you, and, therefore, con- 
sider you fit for nothing better than to manure their fields. 
We cannot possibly admire this kind of patriotism in one 
country without allowing it in the other. The natural 
consequence would be to have all the acres of the coun- 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 473 

try manured with the dead bodies of men. That might 
give very good harvests, but very few harvesters. This 
kind of patriotism is nothing but a pretext of undisguised 
hatred against those who may live on this or the other 
side of a river, or on this or the other side of a red or a 
blue line on a map." 

People will always be different in language and man- 
ners, but they ought to be one in that love which sees a 
brother in every man. The home of a man of heart and 
intellect is the whole world, and all men are his country- 
men ; his friends are those who are good and noble, his 
enemies those who are wicked and depraved. Humanity 
stands high above nationalism. 



Liberty is a word that is much used and much misunder- 
stood, particularly when it is joined to the word equality — 
"Liberty and Equality." It would be more correct to 
speak of liberty and justice, for justice means equality. 
True liberty and equality are not established alone by our 
claims to certain privileges, for these claims ought to be 
based upon the feelings of duty to our fellow-creatures. 
Only when this is taken into consideration are true liberty 
and equality possible. But few people understand how to 
respect the rights of others ; every one wishes to rule, 
and much mischief is caused thereby. True liberty is 
impossible without justice ; and liberty is by no means 
the privilege of doing everything we wish to do, but only 
the right to do all that does not interfere with the rights 
of others. Reason and equity are the foundations of lib- 
erty; the want of these degrades man to a slave. 

By the side of this liberty, which forms the bond be- 
tween ourselves and our fellow-creatures, stands political 



474 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

liberty, which assures our rights from the Government to 
which we belong. The idea and the basis of political and 
moral liberty are the same ; for true political liberty pre- 
supposes individual liberty, and its aim .can be nothing 
but moral liberty and improvement ; and the principle of 
liberty is also a deeply religious one. Let us listen to 
what three men whose love for liberty and h gh morality 
no one will dispute say about the idea of liberty. 

Lamennais says : " Liberty is a living power which we 
feel around us ; it is the protecting spirit of our domestic 
hearth ; the assurance of our social rights, and the first 
of these rights. God has created neither the lowly nor 
the great, neither masters nor slaves, neither kings nor 
subjects. He has made all men equal. So long as you 
are disunited and selfish you can expect nothing but 
misery, suffering and oppression. Be men ; nobody has 
the power to force you under the yoke against your will. 
You can only be put into bondage if it is your wish. Lib- 
erty is the bread which nations have to earn by the sweat 
of their brow.'' 

Spinoza says: "That State alone can be free and 
happy which makes the freedom of its citizens the founda- 
tion of its existence. Where the privilege of free speech 
is not accorded, hypocrisy and base, slavish feelings gain 
the upper hand ; and the contempt which should be the 
punishment of the wicked becomes a halo which surrounds 
the heads of the best men." 

Temme says: "The true liberty of a people exists 
only in the liberty of the individual, and, therefore, under 
such circumstances, conditions and forms as have been 
developed from the free will of a community, and which 
do not depend upon external authority, or conditions and 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 475 

laws which have been forced upon that people. Laws 
imposed by self-styled authority will always remain un- 
true, shallow and lifeless." 

So long as men consider themselves as bondmen, as 
slaves who have no will of their own, who are not allowed 
to act according to their own conviction, but have to 
obey and submit to the will of others; so long as that 
consciousness of right has not been awakened in the 
life of man that he should do nothing against his con- 
viction, he will not attain true liberty, peace and happi- 
ness. So long as nations allow themselves to be governed 
against their wishes, they will occupy a low degree on the 
scale of liberty. The form of government is of no con- 
sequence; it is important only that the rulers should 
acknowledge the fact that the nations are not for the 
rulers, but the rulers for the nations. Man is not born to 
be a slave, but to be a free man, and the more nations 
learn to reflect, the more will they be fit for liberty. 
Ecclesiasticism, with its dogmas, does not make man free, 
but only true religion does. Political liberty is based 
upon religious liberty. The former is not possible without 
the latter. Religious liberty is in a condition of continu- 
ous development, and as sure as the earth makes its 
rovolution round the sun, political liberty will follow 
religious freedom. Truly religious men cannot be slaves. 
Wise and enlightened princes, whose numbers, according 
to the laws of development, must be constantly on the 
increase, should consider this, and do everything to lead 
their people on the path of freedom. The days of those 
autocrats who use the people over whom they rule as mere 
tools of their selfishness, as blind slaves, are drawing to a 
close. 



476 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Slavery and serfdom have been abolished, because they 
were opposed to the spirit of the times and of enlighten- 
ment. In the same way the blind submission of subjects 
to their rulers will cease ; for every sensible man has a 
right to dispose of himself. But the idea of subjection 
excludes this right of self-disposition. The existence of 
the State, and the relation of the individual to the State, 
do not require subjects who have no rights, but citizens 
who are conscious of their privileges. 

At the time when slavery existed in the Southern States, 
we often read in European newspapers violent and well- 
founded denunciations of this system, in which as- 
tonishment was expressed that it was possible in the 
nineteenth century to maintain so immoral and de- 
grading an institution. The fact which was most se- 
verely censured was that the slave-owners had the right to 
sell their slaves. But how is it in Europe to this very 
day? Subjects are not sold for money, but whole prov- 
inces and countries are annexed — a new word for robbery 
— by others without asking the consent of the inhabitants. 
And these inhabitants are not uneducated colored people 
who can neither read nor write, but white, civilized peo- 
ple, who are robbed of their right of self-disposal. Is 
this not slavery in another form? When will the time 
come in which men will learn that it is incompatible with 
their dignity and their privileges to be disposed of like a 
herd of cattle ? 

Liberty and peace are the foundation of the morality 
and welfare of nations; servitude and dissension demoralize 
them and destroy their welfare. Those who work to pre- 
vent the spread of liberty among nations do a great wrong, 
and are at the same time guilty of a serious political 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 477 

mistake : they imagine they see the spectre of revolu- 
tion in the legitimate striving for liberty. They 
are altogether in error. Few of those who are fighting for 
liberty care for the form of government, but are merely 
desirous that it should be a liberal one in reality ; and 
where this is the case, no revolution need be feared; for 
a revolution is nothing but the outburst of the moral indig- 
nation of a people for wrongs suffered by them, which has 
taken an active form. But if no wrong has been done to a 
people, there is no need of a revolution. 

Nations and rulers should not forget that the latter are 
not the masters of the former, but only their governors, 
and that the people have not been made for the rulers, but 
the rulers for the people. A nation should be governed, 
but not commanded. To command presupposes a master, 
and, in a political sense, the compleme; t of a master is a 
slave. The inhabitants of a country should not be either 
the servants or the slaves of a ruler, but free and independ- 
ent citizens, jealous of their liberty. There is something 
sublime in an enthusiastic nation, most particularly so in 
a nation enthusiastic for its liberty. 



We often hear of historical rights, by which is 
meant that something, because it existed in olden times, 
and has done so until our day, should continue so, and 
enjoy the same privileges. History itself teaches us how 
erroneous is this idea, for we see that so-called historical 
rights are continually being overthrown to make room for 
new ideas; and the result has always been beneficent to 
mankind. The so-called historical right prevents prog- 
ress, and turns the paradise of life into a dark vault filled 



478 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

with bones and skulls. Every time has its own privileges, 
and no generation should be the slave of a former one. 
The present generation is under no obligation to make 
the opinions of former ones its own ; on the contrary, it 
is our duty to progress with the times, to examine for our- 
selves, and to arrive at that which we consider as just and 
reasonable. 



All civilized peoples regard murder as the gravest crime, 
and it is punished in almost all countries by the death of 
the murderer. But there are also other kinds of murder — 
and every intentional homicide is murder — which are not 
considered as being crimes, but toward which some pallia- 
tion is extended. To this category belong: first, suicide, 
for which all kinds of motives and excuses are sought; 
secondly, the duel, regarded as made imperative by honor; 
thirdly, the death-penalty, the justification of which is 
looked for in the passage of the Old Testament, "He who 
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed;" 
fourthly, and finally, killing in warfare, regarded as some- 
thing praiseworthy, and spoken of as "deeds of heroism." 

Let us examine these four kinds of murder more closely. 
Whilst suicide is almost unknown to uncivilized people, 
and whilst ancient history, as well as that of the Middle 
Ages, mentions but few instances of it, the frequency of 
this crime in the present century has become so frightful 
as to fill one with horror. I have already given numerical 
proof of this in my chapter entitled, "Has Christianity 
Made Mankind Better?" It is interesting to learn the 
relation between the number of suicides and the different 
creeds and denominations ; and on this point <ilso the Italian 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 479 

statistician, Professor Morselli, gives information. Ac- 
cording to him, the number of suicides in every million of 
people is, among Protestants, 102.7; Roman Catholics, 
62.3; Israelites, 48.4; Greek Catholics, 36.2; whilst among 
Mohammedans suicides are much rarer. The first thing 
that strikes us here is the small number of suicides which 
the Israelites furnish as compared with Christians ; and the 
next is, that so extraordinarily large a number should be 
found among Protestants as compared with Catholics. 
What can be the reason for this latter proportion? 
Probably nothing but the fact that the Catholic Church 
wields a much more rigorous discipline than the 
Protestant Church, and allows no reflection on religious 
matters or Church questions, but insists simply on blind 
belief, whilst Protestantism grants liberty of thought. 
When a Protestant begins to think, however, and when 
Church dogmas have clouded his faith in a Supreme 
Being, in one God, he easily throws off, together with these 
dogmas, his belief in God, his religion, and then, having 
lost this blissful belief, when he encounters the trials and 
hardships of fate he has no support, nothing to lift him 
up and give him new courages 

But does not Christianity in general lead men into a 
struggle too difficult for many a one, by constantly hold- 
ing up before his eyes his sinfulness, by constantly admon- 
ishing to repentance, and thus teaching almost an actual 
hate of his own life ? Whoever grows up in a Christian 
atmosphere can only too easily drift into a destructive 
self-conflict, which may lead to dangerous resolutions, 
from which one cannot free one's self so as to return to 
the joyfulness of confidence in God and childlike resigna- 
tion to his will. One can hardly wonder that this 



480 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

doctrine of the "earthly vale of tears," which is continually 
preached, should bear sad fruit, and that the eternal 
preaching of this life being all vanity and delusion, a time 
of probation, of want and suffering, of all earthly effort 
being vain and objectless, should induce many a one to 
quit this "vale of tears " as soon as possible. 

If we look around for the external reasons for suicide, 
we shall find the following: Disappointed love, jealousy, 
domestic discord, sorrow, want of work, the struggle for 
existence, business losses, wounded vanity, fear of pun- 
ishment, illness, greed of gain, the mania for pleasure, 
and, finally, that pseudo-civilization and mock-culture 
which are encountered so often now-a-days. But how can 
these trials and passions, hard though some of them may 
be to bear and conquer — how can they lead any reasoning 
and moral being to the perpetration of a crime ? Every 
suicide — whatever its external cause — is a crime for which, 
though it entails no responsibility to any human judge, 
the perpetrator has to answer to God, as no man has the 
right to destroy the life given to him by God, the Lord over 
life and death. The phenomenon of a constant increase 
in the number of suicides clearly finds an explanation in 
the decadence of religious and moral sentiment, and in 
the sway of sensuality over reason, to which attention has 
been called before. To escape from some disagreeable 
emotion, from the idea of having sustained an insult, or 
to get rid of the responsibility for some wrong, annoying 
circumstances — but all merely transient and temporary in 
their nature — the suicide relinquishes his life and destroys 
it by a crime ; whilst, if he had only borne his fate for a 
short while, consolation and calmness would surely have 
come to him, and the cloud's silver lining would have 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 481 

become visible to him. How often does it happen that 
people in their anger wish themselves dead, only to per- 
ceive, a few moments later, how foolish and how sinful 
the thought was! 

In the case of nearly every suicide the world is much 
exercised as to the cause of the crime, and this or that out- 
ward reason is always found. But nobody thinks of the 
deeper-lying and real cause. This is the constantly in- 
creasing irreligion and godlessness ; for only a man that 
has lost his faith in God's fatherly love can commit such 
an iniquitous deed. Any one who is religious knows that 
the creature never has the right to interfere with the Crea- 
tor's ordination ; and such a one, no matter what may 
happen to him, will never lose his courage, and never 
give way to the sinful thought of committing the crime of 
suicide. Mazaryk says: " Neither a good Catholic nor a 
Protestant will despair of life, only the bad Catholic and 
the bad Protestant." 

The question whether suicide is an act of cowardice or 
of courage is often argued. Of course, the commission of 
any great crime — and, consequently, that of suicide also — 
requires a certain determination, to some extent a physi- 
cal courage ; but this is far from being moral courage. 
Suicide is an act of cowardice, which has not the courage 
to fight out the combat, but shrinks from it and prefers to 
Abandon the struggle. Suicide is a flight from evils which 
may be merely threatening, actually existing, or only im- 
agined. The suicide is, under all circumstances, a mental 
weakling, as he allows himself to be entirely overcome by 
external circumstances in conflict with himself. What- 
ever may have been the external cause for the unholy 
deed of self-destruction, it is high time to stop 
si 



482 THE COMING CREED OP THE WORLD. 

characterizing this act of cowardice as one of courage — • 
an act which, under all circumstances, is and remains a 
crime. 

But the self-murderer is not only a coward, and, as such, 
to be despised : he is also an egotist, because he acts 
merely on his own inclinations, without considering his 
duty toward his relatives and fellow-beings. He considers 
himself entitled to be his own judge, and executes this 
judicial function by a crime. Let us not make the objec- 
tion that the suicide is irresponsible, that he is to be pitied 
as the victim of disease, but not condemned as a criminal. 
That is false sentiment. Let us call things by their right 
names. Of course, cases do occur where people actually 
demented take their own lives, and we cannot withhold 
from such our most heartfelt pity ; but dementia should 
be used as little as a pretext in palliation of or excuse for 
suicide as for any other crime. 

And the crime of self-destruction has still another bad 
feature — namely, that of psychical infection, fostered by 
the newspapers, which never fail to give the fullest possible 
reports of every suicide. Many facts could be cited to 
prove that such reports have the tendency to cause other 
suicides of a similar kind. And does it not appear natural 
that people who harbor so iniquitous a thought should 
be encouraged to the execution of it by the reading of 
something similar ? We all know the old adage that evil , 
examples corrupt good manners. It may be difficult for 
newspapers to withhold such items of local news from their 
readers ; but if such news has to be furnished, it ought at 
least to be done in a way which would not encourage to 
imitation ; and this end would be attained if every suicide, 
no matter who the self-destroyer might be, were to be 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 483 

characterized as what it really is — a crime and an act of 
cowardice. A person lacking the courage necessary for 
fighting life's battle is a coward. 

Legislators have always endeavored to limit the spread 
of self-destruction, but they have had recourse to mistaken 
means. In England the suicide's body was buried near 
the crossing of four roads, and a stake was driven through 
it ; and in Germany he is, to this day, interred close to 
the cemetery-wall. But by all this we punish only the 
survivors, who, under such circumstances, are the very 
ones most in need of consolation and forbearance. Away, 
then, with such brutalities ! But it would be a good and 
wise thing to avoid all display in such cases ; such a 
course, the simplest interment, would probably also best 
suit the feelings of the survivors. 

This much concerning suicide. Let us now pass on to 
the duel. One of the profoundest thinkers and most ar- 
dent patriots of the first half of our century, Michael 
Etienne, has pronounced the doom of the duel in a 
pamphlet written in 1849, published, however, only a few 
years ago. This pamphlet begins with the following 
words : " There is a cruel irony in the thought that two 
human beings should be driven so far by hatred as to seek 
to take each from the other that life for which they are 
responsible to society ; to make arrangements to butcher 
or maim each other in cold blood, and in the presence of 
witnesses ; that they, despising the protection of society, 
should appeal to themselves, and, in the wild impulse of 
passion, led by mistaken ideas and prejudices, induced by 
friend or foe, should risk the life that does not belong to 
them, because of a puerile insult, an angry look, a con- 
temptuous mien, or an ill-considered word. In the 



484 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

blood of his fellow-creature he sees with satisfaction the 
reparation necessary for the support of a mistaken concep- 
tion of shaky honor ; for a mere misstep in private life he 
substitutes a crime, and atones for the insult to his 
wounded honor by a murder, or by crippling his ad- 
versary. Even in a state of nature, the savage denizens 
of the virgin forests wage no such ferocious war upon each 
other as do the civilized peoples. The logic of the tiger 
is elevated to the highest reason, in order to make it pos- 
sible to shed a fellow-creature's blood with propriety. It 
is a delusion of the most frightful kind. What mental 
rottenness and degeneracy there must be, when the pas- 
sions of a circle of people form the moral code according 
to which one person has to slay another, in order not to 
be covered with derision and shame, with contempt and 
dishonor !" 

The much-to-be-deplored duel mania is raging in 
Europe principally among two classes — military officers 
and students — and, as regards the latter, chiefly among 
those at German universities. To show to what degree 
this disgusting nuisance has grown, it will suffice to men- 
tion that in February, 1883, at Jena, there took place, in 
a single day, not less than twenty-one duels. It is incom- 
prehensible that the legislators of European countries have 
never yet been able to surmount the prejudice and folly 
that injured honor — injured either really or supposi- 
titiously — can be rehabilitated by a duel, a murder. It is 
incomprehensible, but, at the same time, it is a proof of 
the difficulties of the struggle against unreason. There 
are, it is true, in some countries laws against dueling, but 
these laws emanate from civil authorities : they are gen- 
erally not observed by military officials, and sometimes 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 485 

are treated with open contempt. As late as 1882, a case 
occurred in Prussia in which an officer declined a duel 
because the laws of the State, sanctioned by the king, for- 
bade the. duel under heavy penalties. Against this officer, 
who acted according to law, the " court of honor " gave 
the decision that he should be dismissed from the army, 
because he had not shown a proper sense of honor, and 
had violated his duty as an officer under aggravated cir- 
cumstances. And quite recently a like case has occurred 
in Austria. An officer in the army who refused to accept 
a challenge to fight a duel — being guided in this course 
by religion, common sense and conscience — was likewise 
expelled by the " court of honor " of the army corps to 
which he belonged. Such a conflict between law and 
judgment in civilized countries is scarcely conceivable, 
and yet is a fact. 

Must not such a mockery of law evidently contribute to 
continue the prejudice in favor of dueling, and to supply 
it with new victims ? What has the moral sense to say to 
this? And what miserable conceptions of religion and 
morality, of honor and right, must delude the minds 
where anything like this is possible in the nineteenth cen- 
tury ! Does it not require more real courage to oppose 
vigorously such a deep-seated, blind prejudice, and to ex- 
pose one's self to the contempt of those who still cling to 
the delusion, than to confront a loaded pistol? It takes 
mere physical courage to do the latter ; but the refusal to 
commit a murder, or anything that might possibly result 
in murder, requires moral courage. 

One calls the duel a "chivalrous" settlement of 
affairs of honor ; but it is a barbarous and vicious custom, 
defying all morality, all reason, and all sense of justice; 



486 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

of which all civilized beings ought to be ashamed; and 
which, considered from a moral standpoint, can never be 
called anything else than murder. But is such a perverted 
conception, defying all good morals and all right, to con- 
tinue to exist, and to bring ruin upon families ? Is it not 
rather time to put it away with other absurdities belong- 
ing to bygone times? Should not men cease to prefer to 
burden their consciences rather than to risk the contempt 
of fools? Who is the really honorable man, he who par- 
dons an insult, or he who strives to avenge it? — he who 
challenges, or he who has the courage to decline the chal- 
lenge, in defiance of prejudice? He is the truly honora- 
ble man who does, at any cost, that which is right ; and 
he is a real coward who, merely to escape the ridicule of 
fools, does wrong and weighs down his conscience. 

But there are also some countries in which people have 
already attained a reasonable estimate of the duel. In 
Switzerland it occurs only rarely ; and in England it has 
been almost completely suppressed. A generation ago, a 
society was organized there, by peers and other leading 
men, the members of which bound themselves not to fight 
any duel. No longer ago than fifty or sixty years, we 
find Wellington, Peel, Canning, the most eminent states- 
men, acting the part of duelists ; but reason and public 
opinion, supported by the press, have gradually become 
completely victorious, and it may be said without exag- 
geration that in England no decent person has in these 
days anything to do with dueling. This has, however, 
been brought about in a great measure by legislation, as 
English law imposes heavy penalties on dueling, without 
regard to the status of the participants as civilians or mili- 
tary officers. An officer wounding his adversary in a 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 487 

duel would be arraigned like a common murderer before 
the assizes, and condemned to the penitentiary, and, in 
case of the wounds being fatal, would be condemned to 
death and his property confiscated. Public opinion in 
England has, in this regard, made such progress that the 
duel is there considered as infamous. 

The great Irish agitator, O'Connell, accepted no further 
challenge after he had had the misfortune to kill an 
adversary in a duel ; and every moral man will do like- 
wise, even without having a human life to answer for 
already. Every right-thinking person must acknowledge 
that he has duties toward his family, as well as toward his 
country, from the fulfillment of which he cannot withdraw 
in a criminal manner by means of a duel. Whoever con- 
siders an external reparation of an insult as requisite, can 
apply for it to the courts. But every one having true 
self-respect should follow the example of the celebrated 
Athenian statesman, Pericles, who, after having been 
pursued by an adversary with abuse, up to his very door, 
caused this person to be accompanied home by his own 
servant, bearing a lantern. 

We now come to the third kind of murder that is sanc- 
tioned or privileged — the death-penalty. The Bible says . 
" He who sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood 
be shed." But, on the other hand, the Bible also says: 
"Thou shalt not kill;" and, as is frequently the case 
with the Bible, we find here two passages diametrically 
opposed to each other, so that the advocates as well as the 
opponents of the death-penalty can base their arguments 
on the Bible. Let us, therefore, put the Bible aside, and 
treat the question whether the death-penalty be just and 
fair from a purely human standpoint. 



488 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

The penal code has several theories for the death- 
penalty — namely, determent, retaliation (revenge), satis- 
faction for the State, and security for the State. The 
three latter have been pretty well abandoned, and the 
justification of the death-penalty is now mainly based on 
the theory of deterring by intimidation, insisting or sup- 
posing that the sight of an execution must be a warning 
to others not to commit a similar crime. But the penal 
code recognizes still another theory as the warrant for 
punishment in general, and that is the reformatory theory 
— the only one which is morally justified, but which can- 
not be considered in the case of a death-penalty; because, 
if a person be executed, there can be no intention of re- 
forming him, and if we hang a man or decapitate him, we 
deprive him, through violence, of all possibility of refor- 
mation; we rest satisfied with simply taking his life, 
murdering him. According to the passage: "He who 
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," 
in the death-penalty merely a remnant of "vendetta" is 
exercised. In the course of time, a milder practice has 
taken place even with regard to capital punishment, 
horrible as it may be in itself, inasmuch as the law has 
ceased to torture the condemned, contenting itself with 
simply slaying them; the number of the crimes for 
which this punishment is prescribed has also been dimin- 
ished, and has been reduced in all countries to that of 
murder — a great progress in comparison with the last cen- 
tury, when, in England, about a hundred and fifty different 
crimes were punishable by death. Among these was theft 
to the value of forty shillings — truly, a contemptible price 
for a human life ! How morally debased were the opin- 
ions entertained at that time concerning punishment and 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 489 

the value of human life, is most strikingly illustrated 
by the fact that even a man of the high position of 
Lord Chancellor Eldon should have exclaimed, horror- 
stricken — on the occasion of a motion in Parliament 
for the abolition of this forty-shilling law — "Why, 
by this innovation all I possess would be left entirely 
unprotected ! " 

All this has been changed. Murder alone receives the 
death-penalty. Is it warranted even in this case? 

The celebrated authority in criminal law, Temme, speaks 
in one of his works as follows concerning punishment by 
death: "Why do we still have the deaih-penalty, which 
is no punishment, but a cruelty, a barbarity ? They say, to 
murder a human being, to annihilate a human life, is some- 
thing so horrible, inhuman, unnatural, that it can be 
expiated only by the severest punishment. And in what 
do they find this severest punishment? They murder the 
murderer ! They annihilate in cold blood his life, a 
second one in addition to the first ! And the second 
murder they call right, justice; and for the murderer, 
who is to be murdered, special tortures have first to be 
created. The death-sentence is announced to the mur- 
derer weeks beforehand, and it is said to him : ' Thou 
shalt die a violent death. We will lead thee to the 
scaffold, and there the servants of the executioner will 
seize thee, strap thee on the block, and then the execu- 
tioner will come to thee and cut off thy head.' Thus the 
murderer will be murdered, after having had before his 
eyes for weeks and months the picture of his approaching 
cruel death. ' But, after all,' they say to him, * it is 
possible that you may be pardoned,' in order to make 
still more terrible, by the seconds of hope, the weeks and 



49© THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

months of deadly anguish ! And this they call justice, 
even Christian justice ! " 

The first step to the abolition of the death-penalty was 
made in 1764, by the celebrated Italian criminal lawyer, 
Beccaria, the champion against capital punishment, by 
proving that this penalty had never deterred criminals from 
inflicting harm upon society. But a long time elapsed be- 
fore his endeavors bore the first fruits. In Tuscany the 
death-penalty was abolished in 1786, and in Austria in 
1787. It was, however, re-enacted in Tuscany in 1852; 
but this roused such a storm of indignation, that the 
Government found itself forced to annul it once more. 
In Austria it was also re-enacted. In Germany the National 
Assembly of 1848 passed a resolution of abolition, which 
was put into effect in Oldenburg, Bremen, Nassau, Anhalt, 
and the Kingdom of Saxony, but not permanently; for, 
at the establishment of the German Empire, when the re- 
action regained full power, that resolution of the National 
Assembly of 1848 was annulled; and, since that time, 
intelligent Germany can again be proud of the fact that 
in its domain murder will again be committed de jure. 
In Switzerland the death-penalty has been abolished in 
several cantons, but has been re-enacted in some of them. 
In Holland it was abolished in 1870; and the same has 
been done in Portugal, Belgium, and Roumania. Among 
the States of the American Union it was abolished in 
1846 by Michigan, in 1852 by Rhode Island, and in 1853 
by Wisconsin. The remaining States and the remaining 
foreign countries have not yet been able to attain the 
moral elevation requisite for this act of humanity. 

That the death-penalty as a means of deterring from 
crime is a complete mistake; that, on the contrary, the 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 491 

abolition of the death-penalty lessens the number of the 
worst crimes, whilst the spectacle of executions increases 
them, is proved by the experience of various countries. 
In Holland no parricide or matricide was committed in 
the ten years following the abolition, whilst these crimes oc- 
curred frequently in the fifty years preceding the abolition. 
In Tuscany it was shown that the abolition of the death- 
penalty led to no increase in the number of the crimes 
considered worthy of death; and the same result has 
followed the abolition in States of the Union. In Wurtem- 
berg no death-sentence was executed under Karl Wilhelm; 
in Gotha, none in fifty years; and in Russia, under the 
Empress Elizabeth, none in twenty years, without this 
being followed very soon by further crimes punishable by 
death. An English prison chaplain, who during his official 
career prepared one hundred and sixty -seven criminals for 
execution, has testified that of these one hundred and 
sixty-seven persons, one hundred and sixty-one had been 
proved to have witnessed public executions. There is evi- 
dence that people who had just seen an execution, 
only a few hours afterward, themselves committed 
murder. Can one, in the face of such testimony, claim 
any validity for the theory of deterring by intimidation? 
Considering the frightful brutality in the intentional killing 
of a human being; considering the profoundly demoraliz- 
ing effect which executions entail, and, from their very 
nature, must entail, one can indeed not wonder that their 
result is not a decrease, but an increase of heinous crimes. 
Now let us hear what a murderer said, at the last moment 
before his execution, about the death-penalty. A physician 
— consequently an educated man — had murdered, some 
time before, a girl whom he had previously seduced, and 



492 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

he was condemned to death in Cleveland. Standing under 
the gallows, he addressed those present, saying, among 
other things, the following: "I will concede, gentlemen, 
that life is a precious gift, and that it must be protected ; 
and that if anybody murders, human nature's natural in- 
stinct demands his life. Consequently, if the people of 
Bedford had killed me at the time I committed the deed, 
I would have said it was not inhuman, and was done in 
passion ; but if, after six months of deliberation and prepa- 
ration, people demand my life, then they are murderers. 

"What would be the most advantageous for you, gen- 
tlemen — to put this rope round my neck, or to send me to 
the penitentiary, to keep me there as many years as you 
may deem proper ; to dismiss me then as a penitent, so 
that I might use for the benefit of my fellow-men what 
little of talent and power the Creator has given me ? 

"Capital punishment is annihilating. One life is as 
good as another. I admit that ; but what advantage will 
my death bring about? None. I do not even remember 
the moment when, in madness and drunkenness, I found 
a mark for the pistol. Still, such is law, and we must obey 
the law. This law, however, is made by man, and is not 
the law of God. 

"I do not enter into the land of annihilation, but into 
the land of progress ; and whilst I acknowledge the just- 
ness of the law of Ohio, I say that it is foolish and vain. 
Or do you think that, because this rope puts an end to my 
life, crimes will be prevented ? The same influences which 
surrounded me will cause the same effects in others, and 
no example can prevent this. 

"I submit to the law of the land, and leave you. I 
hope that this execution will be an example for everybody, 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 493 

not in favor of capital punishment, but to demonstrate its 
folly, and that you may reflect on this. ' ' 

The way in which this man has reasoned out his rejection 
of the rightfulness of the death-penalty well merits atten- 
tion. It indicates the sole moral purpose of any punish- 
ment — namely, the reformation of him who has committed 
a crime. Or would you doubt that even the worst crimi- 
nal may arrive at intelligent remorse and honest repent- 
ance? And when he thus repents, honestly and truly, is 
he not then a reformed man ? And if such reformation is 
possible, have we then the right to deprive him who has 
sinned, who has committed a crime, of life, and to cut him 
off from repentance and reformation? Ample experience 
in penitentiaries furnishes the proof that it is not 
necessary to destroy the criminal; that, on the contrary, 
he may, by judicious treatment, be reformed, be led to 
true repentance, and his guilt be thus properly expiated. 
God does not want the death of the sinner, but that he 
repent and reform : "Verily, verily, I say unto you, there 
is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than 
over ninety and nine just persons which need no repent- 
ance." — St. Luke xv. 7. 

The intimidation theory, the idea of killing the one in 
order to strengthen thereby the virtue of the others, is an 
absurd perversion of all moral thought. Of all the means 
for exercising good moral influence on society, this one 
of shedding human blood, or of killing in any way a 
human being, is probably the most mistaken, the most 
dreadful and revolting. The most efficient protection of 
life is its sacredness; and this sentiment is weakened by 
every execution. The great Roman philosopher, Cicero, 
expressed himself as follows on capital punishment: "Far 



494 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

be the death-penalty from us, far its executors and imple- 
ments; for every mention of it is painful to a free man." 
And in the criminal work, "The New Pittaval," vol. 
xxvii., we find the following passage : "When the cham- 
pions of capital punishment enter the lists for it armed 
with one well-known quotation from the Bible — ' He who 
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed' — 
it is just as if something were decided as of right, on the 
strength of one passage in a code, though it were an insult 
to the sense of justice of a whole nation." 

But if it should be thought necessary to secure, besides 
the only moral end of any punishment, some deterring 
effect in the case of those crimes called deserving of death, 
this will be reached in the surest way by prompt adjudica- 
tion. Do not procrastinate proceedings for murder for 
months and years, but have punishment follow as speedily 
as possible. Yet do not condemn to death, but to im- 
prisonment for twenty years, or for life. That will have 
a really deterring effect, and will bring to their senses 
people of violent nature predisposed to crime. 

But can confinement for life be justified even in the case 
of murder? The law allows for every misdeed or crime a 
time of limitation, after the expiration of which the culprit 
can no longer be held responsible. In almost all countries 
this limitation is fixed at twenty years for murder; and if 
a person who has committed murder cannot legally be 
punished after the lapse of twenty years, ought not, then, 
the maximum penalty for murder to be twenty years? 
Had the culprit succeeded in escaping judicial prosecution 
for twenty years, he would then be entirely free, and could 
not be touched. Would it not be fair, then, when he has 
not evaded punishment, but has borne the penalty during 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 495 

twenty years, to restore his liberty to him just as much as 
if he had not been punished at all? 

A further argument against the death-penalty is furnished 
by the many judicial murders, the many condemnations of 
innocent people, which criminal history reports. It is bad 
enough if innocent people are condemned to imprisonment, 
their innocence established only after the lapse of months 
or years, and are then restored to liberty. But how — 
and that, too, has occurred often — if an innocent person 
is condemned to death, executed, and his innocence found 
out only afterward? Life once taken cannot be restored. 
Frederick the Wise says: "Nothing is easier than to take 
human life. But is it right? Can we restore it to him, 
should he be innocent; and would we not be criminals 
toward him in that case?" 

And when experience teaches that in all countries sen- 
tences of civil and criminal courts are every day set aside 
as unjust by higher courts, and when this is clear proof of 
the human weakness of judges, who, nevertheless, are un- 
doubtedly honest as a rule — cultivated men, well versed in 
law, who certainly have no intention of doing wrong — 
and when one sees how the decisions differ, dare one, 
under these circumstances, expose a human life, be it that 
of the vilest criminal even, to the vacillations of human 
opinion? But whoever does not believe that many really 
innocent people are executed, need only look into the 
transactions of the English Society for the Abolition of 
Capital Punishment, by which it is demonstrated that in 
two hundred years about two hundred innocent people have 
been butc' ered. And this by no means includes the many 
hundreds who — as previously shown — were hanged in 
England in former years for theft and other minor crimes. 



496 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Another argi merit against the death-penalty is the re- 
pugnance of many jurors to giving a verdict of "guilty" 
against a murderer, because they know that the sentence 
entailed thereby will be that of death, and their humane 
feeling refuses to deliver a fellow-being up to death. 
Rather than do this, they give a verdict of "not guilty," 
and, in this way, criminals deserving punishment often 
escape, to the great injury of society. 

It was said in this chapter that in modern times all tor- 
turing of convicts has been abolished by law; but has this 
been done so far as custom is concerned ? How often has 
it occurred, in places where decapitation is still effected 
by the axe, that the stroke missed, the instrument burying 
itself in the shoulder instead, so that the unfortunate 
creature had to be executed under additional tortures! 
And how innumerable are the instances in the United 
States, where hanging is still practiced, in which, owing 
to the bungling of the hangman, the culprit had to go 
through the process of hanging two or three times before 
being allowed to give up his miserable life ! In McKean 
County, Penna., in 1879, a murderer had in this way to 
undergo the operation twice; at Sioux Falls, Dakota, in 
1882, another one three times; and a third one, a boy of 
eighteen years, in Georgia, in 1883, twice; and between 
the two operations an hour expired before he was dead. 
Are not such cases alone sufficient to give every person of 
feeling a perfect horror of capital punishment? 

But executions have still another dark side; it consists 
in the blasphemy of the priests against everything that 
Christianity calls religion. They represent to the con- 
demned that they will now enter directly into heaven, and 
be received by Christ; there stands the culprit, instead 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 497 

of being deeply humiliated by the sense of his criminality, 
actually jubilant, and rejoicing that he will soon be with 
Christ, and that Christ will receive him with all glory ! 
Is not that rank blasphemy? The priests who seduce 
these miserable sinners to such fantastic visions, ought, in- 
stead, to exert all their influence to induce them to really 
repent of their bloody deeds. Such a conversion, at the 
moment of going to the block or the gallows, is utterly worth- 
less, and nothing but self-deceit and a deception of others. 
True, serious, profound and saving repentance can be ar- 
rived at only gradually, and will never show itself in jubi- 
lant outpourings under the gallows. 

And to what scandalous, outrageous, immoral behavior 
on the part of the public does not a condemnation lead ! 
The condemned receives from all sides proofs of sympathy: 
women and girls present flowers; tracts, books, delicacies, 
are sent; and people importune those in charge to allow 
them to see the condemned or to exchange a few words 
with him. It is a glorification of crime. Many an honest, 
poor fellow, on the other hand, is allowed to die in his 
lonely chamber; for him no sympathy is felt, and nobody 
sends him dainties. How perverted and foolish this world 
is! 

However much it may be in accordance with the spirit 
of modern times not to bury the body of the culprit any 
longer, as formerly, in the spot receiving the offal of the, 
shambles, but in the cemetery, where so many sinners are 
lying — even such as have not been condemned judicially 
— it is, nevertheless, very unwise, on the other hand, » to 
give executed criminals public and pompous interment 
and obsequies, as is often the case, particularly in the 
United States. This, too, is a real glorification of crime^ 

32 



498 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

and must make an impression on the lower classes — those 
from which criminals mostly come — not conducive to good 
morals. 

The fact that in 1878 the executioner of Berlin gave a 
grand dinner, accompanied by music, on the day of the 
execution of Hoedel, who had fired on the Emperor; and 
the other fact, that twelve hundred — actually twelve hun- 
dred — people applied for the position of hangman of 
London, which had become vacant by the death of Mar- 
wood — these facts, I say, ought to fill our century with 
burning shame. 

When will the old barbarism, belonging to the dark 
past, be finally cleared away, and capital punishment be 
abolished everywhere? When will the legislatures of the 
different countries at last consider it their sacred duty not 
to tolerate the death-penalty any longer? When will 
citizens, called for jury duty, refuse to serve in murder- 
cases so long as the murderous law of capital punishment 
exists? When will judges insist earnestly on the abroga- 
tion of the murderous law which surely has often caused 
them bitter qualms of conscience? "\\ hen, finally, will 
rulers recoil with horror from lending their assistance to 
an execution, refuse to commit themselves, and aid directly 
in premeditated murder? Or is an execution, perchance, 
not a real, premeditated murder — murder in the first de- 
gree? According to the laws of all civilized countries, 
every premeditated and intentional killing of a human 
being is murder in the first degree. Well, then, are not 
premeditation and intention to the greatest possible extent 
the preliminaries of every execution? Even in those times 
when capital punishment was still considered as something 
indispensable, the executioner, the hangman, was con- 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 499 

sidered dishonorable, and no decent, reputable man would 
shake hands with him, or would drink with him, or enter 
into any connection with him. And this shrinking from 
him sprang from the truly human feeling of horror at a 
man who could be bought with money to slay his fellow- 
men. And do you want, perhaps, to palliate executions 
by saying that the law of the State exacts them ? There 
is a higher law than all State laws, and that is the law of 
common human morality, which we find laid down in the 
precepts of the most diverging confessions. Already the 
old Mosaic law, known as the Decalogue, contains the 
commandment: "Thou shalt not kill;" and the same in- 
junction we find in the Koran, as well as in the law-books 
of the Hindoos and of other creeds. Civilization has put 
an end to former still more horrible modes of capital 
punishment, such as breaking on the wheel, impalement, 
quartering, burning at the stake, etc., and has simplified 
executions; but the nineteenth century, which has already 
given birth to so much progress, ought not to come to an 
end without having abolished also this last horrible remnant 
of capital punishment, and without having expunged it 
from the law-books of the civilized world. Away, then, 
with this relic of a long-passed dark age, this mockery ol 
the civilization of our century, this blot on our generation ! 
Every one who has human feelings in his breast, every 
one who still recognizes even in the criminal the human 
being, the unfortunate, erring fellow-brother, ought to lift 
up his voice, to assist in attaining this noble, this truly 
humane end. 

I repeat, the foremost and only moral end of any punish- 
ment is the reformation of the criminal; and for this high 
purpose capital punishment does not only not answer, but 



500 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

has even the diametrically opposite effect; for the so- 
called conversions which the priest forces upon the con- 
demned in the last hours or moments, in plain view of the 
scaffold and in the face of death, are no real reformations, 
but mere outward forms by which the priest thinks to 
fulfill his duty. Reformation requires time, and calm 
reflection uninterrupted by external influences. He who 
is once slain can neither reflect nor reform any more. It 
cannot be asserted or predicted of any criminal, not even 
of the worst, that he is incapable of reformation . Even the 
worst criminal may repent — repent profoundly ; and he 
will and must repent, if he be only given time for mature 
reflection, and subjected to impressions whose influence 
is in that direction. Repentance brings forth reformation ; 
and, to make the latter possible, the criminal's life has to 
be preserved. Confine him for many years ; but do not 
take his life, do not cut him off from the possibility of 
repentance and reformation, from the recovery of his 
better self. You have no right to do that ! 

The fourth kind of murder which is tolerated and 
sanctioned is war, with its concomitant, murder of 
people in large numbers. Notwithstanding the many 
voices which have been heard against war, notwithstand- 
ing all the blood already spilled in war, and the misery 
brought upon the world by it, there are still people who 
declare war to be a necessity ; and this is done either from 
unreason, or from the selfishness and the lust of dominion 
of those who want to increase their power or secure other 
advantages, and of those who live by war. But is war 
really a necessity? No, it is not. Yet the majority of 
people of to-day will not believe this ; and if you tell them 
that the time will come when war will no longer drench 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 501 

the lands with blood, they smile superciliously, or say 
sneeringly that it will probably take another thousand 
years before this "necessary evil" will have ceased to 
exist. Consequently, it is conceded that war is an evil ; 
but no evil is necessary. Every evil is reprehensible, and 
we must strive to uproot it. 

Those who say war is a necessity deceive others and 
perhaps themselves. No war is necessary ; it is a crime 
against all mankind, a vandalism of bygone times, and 
every war that is carried on is a new sowing of the poison 
of corruption and ruin. Certainly, diplomacy too says 
war is necessary and inevitable ; but in so doing it deceives 
the world ; and as diplomacy is always the enemy of the 
freedom of peoples, so it also unscrupulously destroys the 
health and wealth of the peoples by war, in order to 
attain its selfish ends. Wars mostly serve only to satisfy 
the desires of those in power, their lust for increase of 
dominion, and for converting the people into their slaves 
without any will of their own. Men in power are assisted 
in their efforts of this kind by the ambition of those who 
want to gain honor and wealth through war; by the 
people, however, through a mistaken conception of 
patriotism. 

In war what conquers ? Right ? No ! No ! 
But Force and Fraud are gainers by its woe. 
War is a curse. The land in ruin lies, 
The people bleed, and slaughtered Freedom dies. 

The law of the strongest can never decide in the realms of 
truth ; might and right are conceptions of entirely different 
natures, and might is never able to create a right. Conse- 
quently, the oft-heard expression that a war has settled 
this or that question of right is entirely illogical and foolish. 



502 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

When cultivated and well-meaning people in private life 
have a difference which they cannot settle between them- 
selves, they lay the case before a court, and its final 
decision satisfies them. Uncultivated people, however, 
instead of leaving the settlement of their quarrel to the 
courts, take the decision into their own hands : they fight, 
and are punished for it ; and if they go far enough for one 
of them to take the life of 'the other, we call it murder, 
and hang the murderer or cut off his head. But when a 
quarrel breaks out between potentates, they do not submit 
the point at issue to a court of arbitration, like civilized 
people, but, like the uncultivated man, like the dregs of 
the people, they take matters into their own hands : they 
appeal to brute force and fight their quarrel out — though 
not personally — but make war on their adversary, and 
cause the murder of thousands and thousands, in order to 
carry out their will. When, then, the shedding of blood 
and the murdering have been going on long enough to 
exhaust one of the adversaries, a so-called Congress comes 
together to make " peace," and then the lands of the 
vanquished are divided up, just as robbers divide the booty 
among themselves after a raid. But the people who 
inhabit the countries thus divided up are not asked 
whether they want to live under this or that Government, 
but are traded away like a flock of sheep, and are then the 
subjects, or, rather, the property, of him to whose share 
they have fallen. 

Now, is there in this way of treating a people even the 
least spark of religion, morality, or right, but is it not, on 
the contrary, in direct opposition to these wise guides of 
life? Why cannot rulers, when they quarrel among each 
other, do as decent people in private life do — submit 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 503 

the matter to arbitration, instead of resorting to such 
brutal measuies as war? And why do the peoples allow 
their rulers the possibility of making war ? 

Warfare requires money — a great deal of money. Who 
furnishes it? In the first instance the great bankers ; but 
these advance it only on good interest. The people have to 
pay the interest on these war loans, and have to pay back 
the principal — the same people who often enough lead 
only a miserable life, in sorrow and hunger. But, in 
addition to all this, the people have to give even their 
blood and life, and must consent to murder or be murdered 
by their fellow-men, who are described as their enemies, 
though no one of them ever did them any harm. There 
are, then, two requisites for warfare — in the first place, 
money, and in the second, men who are willing to become 
the murderers of their fellow-men, or to allow themselves to 
be killed or maimed. Consequently, he who wages war 
depends on the will of those who let themselves be used 
for'it. Take from the rulers the possibility of carrying on 
war, and this monstrosity, this horror, will vanish from 
the world as the night vanishes before the sunlight ; and 
rulers will then be forced to have their quarrels settled by 
arbitration. Then parents and widows will no longer 
lament the death of sons and husbands whom they lost on 
the battlefield; then we shall be spared the sight of 
cripples maimed in battles ; then everybody will have 
enough to live on, and, with peace, general welfare will 
make men happy. War is the enemy of the welfare 
and the wealth of peoples ; it is an ulcer on the body 
politic, robbing it of its vital forces; a scourge and 
plague-sore of humanity. War, with all its horrors, is a 
fury which mercilessly treads under foot all the demands 



504 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

of reason and morality, of humanity and religion ; that 
spreads misery and sorrow over lands and peoples; it is a 
remnant of the dark past, in which the bestial in man still 
had full sway, and a detestable abortion of the still 
unbridled passions of selfishness, lust of power, greed and 
revenge. 

War is murder — only with this difference — that the 
petty murderer who is satisfied with killing one fellow-man 
is led to the scaffold, and loathed by every one, whilst the 
great murderer who depopulates and devastates whole 
countries is considered to be all the greater, the more 
victims have been sacrificed for him. Rulers know why 
they wage war; and the peoples have to make their 
contributions — the men with their blood, the women with 
their tears; and every one has to carry a grievous burden. 
But our life belongs to us, and to nobody else. Besides 
Him who has given us our life, no one has a right 
to take it, or to place us in danger of being deprived of it ; 
nor has any one the right to compel us to kill our fellow- 
men, or to injure them in any way. If the nations, or 
that portion of them which is being used for the purpose 
of waging war, would say, " We refuse to take the lives of 
our fe 'How-men ," all wars would at once be at an end, 
and from that time all questions at issue between the 
nations or their rulers would have to be settled in a 
peaceable way. 

One shudders on reading that the pagan King of Bur- 
mah had a hundred and fifty relatives cut down; but 
when a Christian ruler leads thousands of the sons of his 
country to the shambles, it is considered to be quite in 
order, and those who were leaders are praised as heroes. 
Prof. Dr. Henne makes the following remarks in his work, 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 505 

"The Written Revelation and the Spirit of Man" (1870): 
"Written Christianity, which was taught to the Emperor 
of Austria and the King of Prussia when they were boys, 
and which they swore to live up to, has not prevented 
these two crowned heads from ignoring before the entire 
world its principal commandment, and, indeed, from 
mocking it in the most outrageous manner, when, on the 
third of July, 1886, at Koenigsgratz, each of them 
ordered 200,000 of their innocent subjects — fellow Chris- 
tians — who had never before set eyes on one another, to 
send a quantity of hot shot into each other's brains, 
simply for the purpose of deciding the insignificant ques- 
tion, what new form the confederation of the German 
peoples was to have. ' ' We abuse as savages and barba- 
rians heathen Indians who, in order to defend their territory 
against Christian intruders, surprise and murder the latter. 
In how much are Christians better when they invade their 
neighbors' country in order to seize it, destroying the lives 
of thousands, whilst the Indians on their war expeditions 
kill only a few ? 

It is justly called inhuman to abuse animals, and socie- 
ties for their protection do their best to prevent it. It is 
justly called a brutality when fights between animals are 
arranged, when bull and dog mangle each other, and 
when gamecocks are provided with steel spurs, so as to be 
better able to cut their adversaries to pieces. Human feel- 
ing characterizes such acts as inhuman. Well, how fares 
it with philanthropy and humanity — not as directed 
toward animals, but toward human beings — when hundreds 
of thousands of them, who never saw each other before, 
and bore each other no ill-will, are let loose upon each 
other at the word of command, like wild beasts, in order 



506 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

to murder and maim each other ? Is that humane ? No, 
it is inhuman; but it is not considered unchristian ; for on 
the battlefield, covered with thousands of corpses and 
wounded, a Te Deum is then intoned, a "Lord God, we 
praise Thee!" A simple man who believes in God 
shudders at such blasphemy, at such mockery of every- 
thing sacred ! 

Christianity looks with pride upon that society which, 
under the sign of the Cross, devotes itself to the care of 
the wounded on battlefields. This is not, however, an 
offspring of Christianity, but of humanity rising superior 
to Christianity. They have a similar society in Turkey 
which has a crescent on its shield. These societies, however 
noble their aim may be, are, after all, only a compromise 
with the murder of war on a grand scale ; and they even 
abet war, inasmuch as they make the picture of war appear 
in a milder light to those afar off, instead of its causing 
horror. True humanity does not consist in making war 
milder and more plausible, but in holding it up to man- 
kind in all its atrociousness. Abolish war, which is the 
shame of our time and the disgrace of mankind, and you 
will not have to nurse the wounded, nor to collect chari- 
table gifts for widows and orphans robbed of their sup- 
porters by war. Our civilization is and remains a lie so 
long as war between civilized peoples does not belong to 
the impossibilities. The only wars which have any justi- 
fication are those of defense ; because, just as individuals 
whose lives are threatened have the right and the duty to 
repel the attack, so nations have this right and this duty. 
But even defensive wars will not be either necessary 
or possible when every quarrel between nations or their 
rulers must be settled by arbitration. And it is to be 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 507 

hoped that even that time will come when the rulers of 
the nations will have arrived at the conscious conviction 
that the peoples are not slaves, without any rights or will 
of their own, but that they possess uninvadable rights. 
When that time has come, it will no longer be necessary 
for the nations to fight for their liberty and rights — in 
other words, to revolutionize. 

But — aside from the cruelty and inhumanity of the 
waging of war, and the blood which it costs — what other 
evils weighing heavily on mankind has war in its train? 
Primarily, demoralization. Every appeal to force entails 
brutalization and weakening of morality; and thus war 
also awakens the brutal instincts of man. It is an histori- 
cal fact that immediately after wars brutality, license and 
crime increase. Naturally so ; because the trade of war 
is a trade of brute force and murder, and must necessarily 
suffocate man's better tendencies and revive the bad ones. 
Look back upon the wars of all ages, and you will find 
that after every one of them, without exception, there was 
an increase of crime, of sexual crimes as well as of those 
against life and property. 

And another bad consequence of every war is the 
damage to and destruction of property. The welfare of 
man is based upon the morality of his actions. Work is a 
trait of morality ; and the more industrious a people is, 
the more moral it will be. Certainly, war also furnishes 
work to do ; but this work is not the kind devoted to pro- 
duction, which brings forth welfare and wealth, but it is 
devoted to destruction, which annihilates wealth. War 
enriches the few, but impoverishes the masses; and just 
the poorer part of a population suffers most misery ; for, 
whilst war brings nearly all business to a standstill, it 



508 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

impairs every channel whence work or a livelihood is 
derived, and the prices of the necessaries of life go up to 
extraordinary heights, often to double and triple their 
value in time of peace. Everywhere times are then bad; 
and, as in time of war no one wants to risk his means in 
new undertakings, one sees want of work everywhere ; and 
hundreds of hungry families, thousands of laborers, who 
in time of peace earned their daily bread by the work of 
their hands, are now forced to idleness and plunged into 
poverty; and every day's work which, through military 
service, was lost to those laborers who are now in the field, 
and every piece of bread or meat eaten by the soldier who 
remains in unproductive activity, contributes, to impoverish 
the country. 

The welfare of the nations is being severely hurt in still 
another way by war ; for every human life which is lost 
through war represents a certain amount of capital; and a 
million of men whose ages range from twenty to thirty 
years represent a very large sum. At the rate of one 
hundred dollars yearly wages for each man, this loss 
amounts to the enormous sum of three thousand million 
dollars in the course of twenty years ! In this calculation 
only a small amount of wages — viz. : one hundred dollars 
— is taken for a basis, while three hundred dollars would 
certainly not be too much. 

The time will come when — regard being had to our 
wars — people will marvel at the peculiar "morality" of 
our times. Some day, when the farmer's plow turns up a 
piece of iron out of the soil, he will tell his children, to 
their horror, that in the nineteenth century men murdered 
each other by thousands with such swords, not in anger 
or in revenge, but by order of some ruler who wanted war 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 509 

to satisfy his greed of land or to crown his brow with the 
laurel of glory. 

War destroys in a single day what decades of hard toil 
have honestly gained, and what other decades have then 
to regain, and leaves destruction, affliction, misery, blood 
and corpses, sorrow and tears, everywhere. Well, then, 
thou our country, if thou wilt show thyself worthy of the 
maturity of which thou vauntest thyself so often, prove it 
by deeds, and test thy words about civilization by resolving 
to abolish war ;' seal thy striving after the good by this the 
greatest step in advance possible to thee ; and crown thy 
work, crown the abundance of good which thou hast 
already bestowed on the world, with this crown — the only 
one which in truth and in verity is "by the grace of 
God" — not for the weal of any one people, but for the 
weal of all mankind. Christianity has paid homage to 
war ; exalted Humanity must give peace to the world by 
abolishing wars. 

Peace is the supporter, war the destroyer. 



Protective duties are also enemies of liberty, and are in 
reality a war which nations carry on against each other in 
order to destroy each other's welfare. Free trade and 
free communication are necessary conditions for the peace 
and welfare of nations. The ethical principle of liberty 
stands above all private interest, and the empire of liberty, 
spiritual and social, is the empire of peace. 



Capital and labor are frequently considered as opponents 
and adversaries, as are also considered religion and science; 



510 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

yet in neither instance is this assertion correct. Human 
society is an organization in which the interests of all its 
members are jointly and severally established, so connected 
with each other, so dependent the one upon the other, 
that no part can be healthy and thriving without the vigor- 
ous condition of the other. Arguing upon the erroneous 
idea that capital and labor are adversaries, the leaders of 
the laboring classes maintain that the power of capital 
ought to be destroyed. They say that capital is an enemy 
of labor, and that proprietors are the enemies of non- 
proprietors, which really means that, in order to procure a 
better position for laborers, capital should be destroyed 
and a war carried on against property. This is the germ 
of all the bitter feeling on the part of laborers against their 
employers. 

But capital is not an enemy of labor, and, indeed, the 
idea of antagonism between these two is altogether out of 
the question; for capital is not only money, but it consists 
of three different factors — first, -intelligence and mind, 
which are able to make plans and to conduct business and 
enterprises; secondly, the means to carry on business and 
enterprises; thirdly, the labor which is required to execute 
the enterprises. The most admirable mental faculties and 
the most precious and excellent ideas are of no use to him 
who lacks the capital to carry his ideas into execution: 
they are then useless and without value. And the rich 
man who is wanting in intellect will not be able, with all 
his money, to start an undertaking and to employ labor; 
and, however capable the workman may be, if he is in 
want of either intelligence or money, he will not be able 
to make use of his strength. Thus it is clear that these 
three factors can produce something only when they are 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 511 

united with each other in peace, and work, not one against 
the ether, but for and with each other; for peace brings 
wealth, while enmity destroys it. 

But the workmen do not agree to this. On the contrary, 
the majority of them think that their interests are better 
advanced by continual warfare against their employers. 
It is principally by means of strikes that the laborer carries 
on this warfare ; and it is not always the question of wages 
which causes the suspension of labor. Sometimes a change 
of the day of payment is demanded ; or an obnoxious 
superintendent or foreman is to be removed, for no other 
cause than that he has at heart the interest of his employer, 
er has had a quarrel with one of the workmen; or they 
demand that workmen who have been dismissed for good 
cause should be reinstated ; or that no apprentices shall be 
employed, etc. In this manner the laborers want to force 
the employer to actions over which they (the laborers) 
have no rightful control; and, in fact, nothing more is 
wanted than that they may appoint a committee, which 
shall conduct the business, watch over the employer, and 
pay him a certain salary, with which he ought to be con- 
tent. 

Many of the present employers have been laborers them- 
selves, and have been successful in rising to a superior 
position. And what would be the course of action of a 
workman who to-day wants to dictate to his employer, and 
who after ten years has worked himself up to be an em- 
ployer himself, if his workmen should presume to dictate 
to him? He would certainly think : "It is quite a differ- 
ent thing now." 

The laborer has certain privileges; and if he contents 
himself with these, he -will ajways be in the right. He 



b i2 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

has the privilege of receiving his wages on an appointed 
day of the week or the month; he has the right to demand 
that nothing be asked of him that goes beyond his strength 
and ability; he has the right to demand kind, respectful 
and polite treatment, such as is due from man to man. 
All this is the laborer's undisputed right. But he has no 
right to dictate to his employer whom he should employ, 
or in what manner he should conduct his business. And 
if the workmen wish to enforce these rights by strikes or" 
other means, they commit a twofold wrong; and those 
employers who yield to such unreasonable demands are 
ignorant of the wrong which they do to themselves and to 
those workmen who have not joined in the strike. 

Nobody will doubt the fact that among the many em- 
ployers there are some who are inclined to be unjust to 
their workmen, and to treat them in an unbecoming man- 
ner. But, fortunately, these are only exceptions. Every 
sensible man knows that, even if his heart does not tell 
him, it is to his own advantage that he should be on a 
good footing with his workmen, and that he should avoid 
everything that would be likely to disturb the good feeling 
between them. But the workingman should not embitter 
the life of his employer, which is often a very hard one. 
Does the workman know of all the cares and worry which 
trouble the mind of his employer ? Has he an idea what 
trouble is caused by vile competition ? Has he an idea of 
the anxiety and loss caused by a contract which has been 
made under favorable circumstances, and which is sud- 
denly changed from a profitable business into a ruinous 
one by an unforeseen rise in the cost of the raw material ? 
Has he any idea of the trouble and the actual loss which 
are experienced by the employer who is compelled to give 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 513 

credit ? Has he any idea of the vexation which a man of 
business experiences who is in want of capital, and what 
sacrifices he must make in order to get the money to pay 
the wages of those in his employ ? If many a workingman 
who to-day thinks his employer a fortunate man, and en- 
vies his presumed prosperity, were only put for a few weeks 
in his employer's place, he would be glad to be a common 
workingman again, and receive his earnings without any 
trouble on pay-day. 

But the laborers do not usually take this into considera- 
tion ; and the demagogues to whom they lend a willing 
ear, who are not workingmen themselves, but live upon the 
labor of others, take good care to keep such considerations 
from their view. Labor is an honorable gift, and should 
not be degraded by the desire to work as little as possible, 
to earn in the shortest time the highest possible wages for 
the worst possible labor, in order to lead a comfortable 
life without trouble or exertion. 

Have the strikes which have taken place for a higher 
rate of wages really done any good to the workingman ? 
In a few isolated instances they have achieved their pur- 
pose for a short time ; but, as a rule, they have caused 
mischief rather than advantages. A few years ago the 
coal-miners in South Yorkshire, England, lost $1,250,000 
by a strike of fourteen weeks ; the coal-miners in South 
Wales lost, in the spring of 1875, £3,000,000 sterling, or 
#15,000,000; and the men employed in the glassworks of 
the city of Pittsburgh lost half a million of dollars in wages 
during their strike in 1883. It would be almost impossible 
to estimate the sums which have been lost in strikes in dif- 
ferent countries during the last ten years. It is an old 
experience in war that the conquered pay the costs of the 

S3 



514 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

war. And, in most cases, the laborers have been the 
losers. 

In certain countries there exist so-called strike-funds, 
for the purpose of assisting strikers. But is it honorable, if 
one is able to earn one's living by honest labor, to receive 
charity ? And who supplies the funds which are in the 
hands of these strike-committees, which in many cases 
amount to considerable sums ? Seven English trade unions 
have paid to strikers more than $10,000,000 during the 
last six years; and the Trade Union of English Engineers 
and Mechanics paid, in the year 1879, $75°> 00 °> ano o i n 
five years, $1,935,000 for the same purpose. These strike- 
funds consist of nothing else but the savings of the work- 
ing-people, which is the very best proof that the wages 
could not have been so bad as to force the laborers to vio- 
lent means, for a strike is a violent measure. 

The origin of strikes is, in the first place, the idea that 
the workingmen assume that high wages constitute pros- 
perity. But that is a mistake ; for high wages cause also 
an increase in the cost of daily necessities ; and it is 
proved by experience that the laborer is better off with 
smaller wages and cheap provisions than under the cir- 
cumstances prevailing in the first case ; and with a little 
careful living, and by avoiding unnecessary expenses for 
pleasures and drink, any workingman might in, say, ten 
years save a sum which would enable him to establish a 
little home of his own. Many laborers who have earnest- 
ly tried have succeeded in this ; and it should be the aim 
of every respectable workingman to reach this end. It 
can be done, and without strikes. 

The second cause of strikes is the continual revolution- 
ary movements of the demagogues. Yet, if there are 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 515 

many among the laborers who are inclined to believe the 
doctrines of these leaders, and to follow them blindly, and 
who are ready every day to join a strike, there are many 
intelligent men among them who are only led astray and 
forced to join a strike. But is it right and manly for the 
laborer to allow himself to be forced into a movement 
which he considers unlawful and unjust; to do something 
which, if it were done to himself, he would thoroughly 
condemn ; to do something which would injure his family, 
by depriving it of the income which is due to it, and 
which it would have received if the head of the family had 
been at work ? If there is anywhere an undisputed right, 
it is the right to work — that is to say, the privilege of every 
individual to profit by his ability to work in any way he 
chooses. But, in the same way, every man has the right 
not to work if he does not want to work, or if he can live 
without work ; yet nobody — neither a single man nor an 
association — has the right to prevent another who wishes to 
work from doing so. The right to work is violated by the 
strikers in the most ruthless manner. They claim the 
privilege of forcing those who wish to work to be idle. 
How is it possible that men whose duty it is to care for 
their families, and who are willing to work for them, are 
such cowards as to allow themselves to be tyrannized over 
by such as do not wish to work, but would rather live on 
the funds of the strike-committee? Workmen, you who 
are willing to work, do not allow yourselves to he coerced 
by others, and the strikes and all the foolish talk about the 
antagonism of capital and labor will soon cease. There 
is no antagonism between capital and labor ; there can be 
none ; and he who excites the workingmen against their 
employers is an enemy of law, justice, and liberty.' With 



516 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

few exceptions, wealth is the result of industry, economy, 
and carefulness in business ; and what the wealthy who 
formerly were laborers — and there are thousands of men 
of this kind in the United States — have reached, can also 
be reached by others who are not at present in pros- 
perous circumstances. Not the erroneous doctrines of 
socialism and communism, which wish to do away with 
personal property and level everything, and which excite 
the workmen against their employers, can make mankind 
happy ; but those conditions in which men work peace- 
fully with each other, and in which every one has a chance 
to rise as far as his industry, knowledge and abilities per- 
mit him, can secure for us a comfortable and peaceful life. 

As a matter of course, no reasonable person will be 
opposed to union among the working-classes. There are 
many societies among them which have at heart the wel- 
fare of the laborers, and have done much good. There is, 
for instance, the American National Union of Stationary 
Engineers, which met in 1883 in Chicago. The purpose 
of this union is to improve the condition of the working- 
men and their trade ; it is strenuously opposed to every- 
thing relating to trade unions, and the society strictly for- 
bids its members from taking part in any strike-movement. 
Such societies ought to be founded everywhere. They 
would soon gain the upper hand over strikers and strikes, 
and would really advance the welfare of the working- 
people and their families. Such societies as have been 
established by the great friend of workingmen, Schultze- 
Delitsch, have already done a great deal of good work, 
and procured homes for thousands of workingmen. 

Do not let us forget that we are all workingmen in one 
way or another ; that we all live from our labor, one under 



PERTAINING TO MORALITY. 517 

more favorable conditions than the other; that we all 
depend upon each other; and that we have not only- 
rights, but also duties to fulfill. But if the workingman 
insists alone upon his rights, and recognizes only his 
leaders as judges, who tell him that he has no duties, but 
rights only, and whose decisions smother every feeling of 
duty within him, we cannot wonder that the employer 
loses all courage and inclination to meet his workingmen 
in a friendly way, or to arrange differences of opinion in 
a friendly manner. But is it right, justifiable, and reasona- 
ble, that, if we wish to obtain something from another 
person, we should use violent means, at once threaten with 
a strike, and place ourselves as an enemy to the other 
party? According to human nature, such violent means 
will result in a refusal of the demand, which would not 
have taken place if it had been made in a friendly and 
reasonable manner. The employers, according to the old 
proverb, " The pitcher goes to the well until it breaks," 
will be compelled, finally, to join id a great and general 
union to fight against these continual strikes. And which 
of the two could hold out the longest, the employers or 
the workmen ? 

As late as November, 1883, a strike of the cigarmakers 
in Montreal, which had lasted six months, had to be 
abandoned. The same was the case with a strike of the 
cigar-boxmakers in New York, which had also lasted 
for a long time, and regarding which the statement had 
daily appeared in the newspapers that the strikers would 
under no circumstances surrender. It may easily be 
imagined that the amount of wages which these two 
unions alone lost by their strikes must have been very 
great. 



5i8 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

Nor should the workmen forget that a necessary conse- 
quence of strikes must be a disturbance of all business. 
In the beginning the employers will suffer most, but 
finally the workmen will have to endure the consequences 
of their actions. They should also consider that there are 
crises in business which compel the employer to take his 
choice between an entire suspension of the work or a re- 
duction of the wages of the workingmen ; for instance, the 
manufacturers of iron and steel had such an alternative 
before trum in the fall of 1883, in consequence of the pro- 
tective tariff. Many manufacturers have been compelled, 
instead of closing their factories altogether — which would 
have been to their interest — to offer work on half-time, or 
they have been obliged to reduce wages temporarily, 
rather than leave their workmen without work, and, con- 
sequently, without the means of existence. Is a reduction 
under such circumstances not better than an entire sus- 
pension of work? It cannot be of so much consequence 
to the single workman if he has to work for a short time 
at a reduction of ten per cent. ; but to the employer Who 
gives work to several hundred workmen, and with whom 
it is a question of thousands of dollars every week, the 
crisis, which means existence or ruin, becomes far more 
serious. All these arguments, which are never mentioned 
by those who have made themselves the leaders of the 
working-classes, should not be ignored by right-minded 
workingmen. 

Let us hope that the time is not far distant when work- 
ingmen will recognize the fact that all strikes, no matter 
for what object, lead them backward rather than forward ; 
and that, in a strike for an increase of wages, even if they 
are supported by the strike-fund, they are losers ; for they 



THE OPPONENTS OF RELIGION. 5*t 

would have earned more if they had worked. Workmen 
should also learn to ignore the commands of unprincipled, 
incapable, and malicious leaders ; that it is the most abject 
slavery to allow anybody— either a society or an indi- 
vidual—to dictate to them whether they should work or 
not, whether they should support their families honestly 
or be idle. The upright man, who is willing to work, is 
actually cheated, if he is weak enough to follow the teach- 
ings of these demagogues. He loses his right to work, arid 
the right to support himself and his family respectably. 

The welfare of mankind is not furthered, but under- 
mined by the distinction of classes. We all have the 
same right to happiness and well-being. The happiness of 
the individual depends upon the happiness of all ; and, on 
the same principle, it is the duty of the individual to con- 
tribute his share to the general welfare. The happiness 
of the individual, like that of nations, depends on peace; 
for peace brings happiness, while discord destroys it. • 



Conclusion. 



Six hundred years before Jesus, Buddha, a priest of 
humanity, preached the doctrine that on earth, as well as 
in the life hereafter, hiunanity alone could be of avail. A 
hundred years ago Wilberforce wrote his work, " A Prac- 
tical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed 
Christianity, Contrasted with Real Christianity." A 
hundred years have elapsed since Thomas Paine published 
his "Age of Reason." A hundred years have passed by 
since Lessing preached his gospel of humanity. If things 
have not since changed much for the better; if these writ- 
ings by Wilberforce, Paine and Lessing, did not exercise 
in those days that influence which they would if published 
to-day, we must find the reason in the fact that in those 
days Christian people were too firmly bound in the fetters 
of dogmatism to understand immediately and completely 
the opinions of these great men. But, in the course of 
this century, and particularly in the second half, things 
have changed for the better ; everywhere we find a move- 
ment to break down those barriers which hitherto have 
divided mankind, and to bring about a better, more 
beautiful, and happier epoch. Hundreds of thousands 
of men have recognized the fact that Christianity separates 
man from man, and has put obstacles in his way which 
lead to strife, hatred, and cruel persecution; whilst human- 
ity unites men as brethren, removing with gentle violence 
all impediments which separate man from man. 

Ecclesiastic dogmatism, which has been derived from 
the Bible, but has little or nothing to do with true religion, 

(520) 



\ 



CONCLUSION. . 521 

is the immediate cause of this separation. As soon as man- 
kind can get rid of these dividing dogmas, it must acknowl- 
edge that all phases of faith are based upon the belief in 
one Supreme Being, and that all dissension and hatred, 
and, we may say, the mutual contempt existing among the 
different creeds, must cease, or be made innocuous, by 
the belief in that first and supreme principle of religious 
thought. There is nothing that separates the different 
creeds — regarded from a humane point of view — which 
justifies a division. The Catholic is not a criminal, whose 
presence should be shunned by the Protestant or Israelite; 
the Protestant is not unclean, so that Catholics or Israelites 
should fear intercourse with him; and the Israelite, who, 
to the shame of our century, is persecuted even in these 
days in Europe, has nothing in him which could bring 
danger to the followers of other creeds. Only dogmatism, 
hatred and fanaticism, nurtured by Christian priests, 
separate mankind, which otherwise would live in the bonds 
of brotherly love. The state of the world, with its ever- 
lasting wars and constantly increasing crime, has proved 
that Christianity has done nothing to improve mankind 
and to make the world better and happier; and it is, 
therefore, our duty to leave for posterity a superior and 
more blissful view of God and the world, and thus bring 
about a period of greater happiness. Man can never be 
without fault ; but he can arid must be made better as soon 
as the idea of brotherhood ceases to be a hollow sound, 
and begins to take an active part in the life of mankind. 

Humanity is that which is common to all men, and 
within it rests the reconciling element to heal all conten- 
tion. As soon as the adherents of all creeds will learn 
to recognize that they must not believe blindly what is 



522 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

taught by the priests, but should use their own reason and 
reflect, they must come to the conclusion that if they rid 
themselves of erroneous dogmas and beliefs, and cling 
only to the faith in one Supreme Being, and in the universal 
brotherhood proceeding from it, all dissension and strife 
will cease, and peace with ourselves and with the world 
will be the blissful result. 

God has not created Christians and Jews, and Catholics 
and Protestants, but only men; and he does not desire 
that we be Christians, or followers of any other sect, but 
that we be men and act as such. 

To act humanly means to love our fellow-men and to do 
right. That is all God asks of us, and by obeying this 
injunction we attain true happiness. 

God does not demand, that we should believe in unnat- 
ural or supernatural things; that we should renounce all 
joys of this life, these heavenly blossoms which He has 
Scattered in the pathways of our lives; He does not desire 
hypocrisy and casting down of eyes; but He wants us to 
believe simply in His fatherly love. He loves a cheerful 
looking Up to him. We should not consider life a burden, 
but a gift; and we should lead a contented, cheerful and 
happy existence. God has not made us perfect : He has 
not made us angels; but He has made us to be men ; and 
if we gain this end, and live as men in the true sense of the 
word, if all our doings are governed by humanity, we do 
our duty. To act with humanity means to be charitable, 
kind and just toward our fellow-creatures. If we wish to 
designate a detestable action, we call it /«human. History 
has taught us that Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans, 
have often acted in a very inhuman manner. It is the 
task of true religion to relieve mankind from all that is 



CONCLUSION. 523 

inhuman — from injustice, from heartlessness, from war, 
and from all that is evil, and to bring about a more sublime 
and blissful spiritual life. 

When mankind renounces the so-called revealed religions 
and turns toward a belief in one Supre7ne Being, national 
hatred will cease with denominational hatred. Hatred be- 
tween nations, united to that of religious belief, has 
brought about many bloody wars, and has cost the lives of 
millions of people, when it has been held out falsely as a 
bait, under the disguise of patriotism, to entice the nations 
jto war. 

But we must not only destroy what is not good: we must 
also build again; yet the rubbish of centuries must first be 
cleared away before we can lay the foundation of the new 
edifice. The love of God, which man has almost lost, 
must be reawakened, so that we can recover those holy 
and eternal aspirations which we have lost, because we 
could not recognize them in the corrupted shell of Church 
dogmatism. We must restore that one commandment: 
"Thou shalt love God, and thy neighbor as thyself" — 
the only commandment of true religion. Only by this 
sign — not by that of the cross, which for centuries has 
brought misery and wretchedness, hatred and dissensions, 
blood and destruction, and horrors of all kinds upon the 
world — only by this sign, the sign of the one Eternal 
Being, mankind will conquer — that is to say, will become 
more humane day by day. 

As long as Christianity, with its false teachings of 
miracles, superstition and spiritual pride, is not overcome, 
atheism will be able to exterminate brotherly love in the 
heart of man, and to drive the world into a cold selfish- 
ness destructive of all noble feeling. When these two 



524 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

adversaries of human freedom and human happiness, which 
at the outset are enemies, but eventually unite in destroy- 
ing the belief in one Supreme Being and in brotherly love, 
shall have been conquered, then love will take the place 
of egotism, and liberty the place of slavery, and humanity 
will become victorious. However much we may torment 
ourselves to solve the problem of our existence, we shall 
find no other answer than this — that it is man's highest 
and only task to be a man. Not in the so-called religion 
of Positivism; not in the belief in old doctrines and anti- 
quated dogmas; not in the belief in redemption by bloody 
sacrifices or outward powers, should we look for salvation; 
only in true and unfettered humanity, in the observation 
of the simple and sublime commandment : " Love ye one 
another like brethren" — only in this sense, not in that 
which is taught by the Christian Church, and which is 
applicable only to Christianity, the promise of one shep- 
herd and one fold can become a reality. 

The day will come when Light will from the Form 
Eternal rend the veil of mist and storm. 
Then shall it show, throughout the flight of time, 
In beauty unapproached, a brow sublime. 
Then Error, Craft and Dogma shall decay: 
All things that mar man's peace will fade away; 
And one great band of love will girdle round 
The living world, throughout which will resound 
Rapt Hallelujahs. 



I cannot conclude this work without saying one word 
to the mothers, to you who are the educators of the present 
generation, and thereby of those which are to come, The 
future of the world is in your hands, and that which you 



CONCLUSION. 525 

teach is the seed of the future ; it is your sacred duty to 
see that this seed shall bring forth good fruit. 

Teach your children, from their earliest age„ that God 
and the love of God are the principles of all life, and that 
all religion is contained in the words: "Thoushalt love 
God, and thy neighbor as thyself." Teach them that 
there are no other Gods than the one Supreme Being. 
Teach them that all men — without distinction of color, 
nationality or creed — have equal rights, and that the only 
distinction between man and man lies between honest and 
dishonest men, between good and bad men. Teach them 
that man must have a higher aim than only to eat, to 
drink, and to sleep. Teach them that the love of truth 
and of doing right is the foundation of true happiness. 
See that your children do not confound Christianity with 
Religion, Christianity being a certain creed only. Guard 
them against dogmatism; for, in later years, when they 
begin to think for themselves, they will throw away dog- 
matism; and if the belief in God's love is not firmly 
rooted in their hearts, they will reject Religion — the 
belief in one Supreme Being — at the same time, and will 
thus be left without a hope or support. Save them from 
perplexing spiritual struggles, which have embittered the 
lives of so many people. It is in your power to plant the 
germs of goodness in your children's hearts, and to weed 
out that which is hurtful. Teach them to distinguish 
truth from falsehood, to love the former and to hate the 
latter. Teach them so that when they have grown up to 
be men and women they will be a blessing to mankind. 

Thirty years ago, when I placed my eldest daughter's 
hand in that of her betrothed for life, I said to the 
young couple : ' ' Become better than your parents. ' ' That 



526 THE COMING CREED OF THE WORLD. 

language sounded strange ; and yet these words contain 
the basis of the salvation of the world. If children be- 
come better than their parents, if every generation im- 
proves upon that which precedes it, then the world must 
become better. It is our most sacred task to work so as 
to bring this about. 

The most important part of this most sacred mission 
belongs to you, the mothers, who are the educators of the 
generation now growing up. In your hands rests the 
welfare of future times. You must do your duty. 



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